Sea of the Eternal Sun
by Ender1030
Summary: High speed Naval, Air and Land combat in the End War!  The United States Navy and Joint Strike Force make their opening moves against the Mighty European Federation!  based and inspired on Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising
1. Opening moves

AN: For those of you familiar with Tom Clancy's novels (yes, hes not just a videogame producer, he's a damn good author) you will see that I've somewhat emulated his style here. Also, one will notice that quite a few of his less notable characters make "guest appearances" in this story. For those of you that are not familiar with his novels i will go so far as to explain this. Tom Clancy is a master of combining hyper realistic modern/scifi warfare with a dramatic plot, and mixing it all into characters that range from Generals commanding millions, to the cockpit jocks, to the men huddled behind the cover of a broken wall in the fury of combat, to the silent wars played in the depths of the ocean. For those of you Green horns that dont like to get your feet wet much less hear about it, then i will tell you to merely be patient. I eventually _do_ get to the war on land, but for now content yourself in the ferocious wargames played by the brave souls who venture out into the sea. Keep your heads down mates, and keep your ears open. here be dragons.

* * *

"All ahead one third. Right standard rudder, make your bearing zero one five." Captain Toland of USS _Chicago_ ordered.

"All ahead one third, changing zero one five starboard aye." The helmsman responded crisply. That's how things were in the US Navy. Crisp, clean, and smooth. Every man was a cog in a machine that was the fighting vessels of the Atlantic Task Force.

"Conn, Sonar" the sonar operator called over the _ Chicago'_s intercom. "Got possible transients at five kilometers, maybe twin screws."

"Keep an eye on it Kennedy." Toland responded. _Chicago_ was one of the first of the _Los Angeles _class nuclear attack subs of the USN, they weren't the newer _Virginia_ class capable of firing ICBMs at a range of almost 60 kilometers from their target. _LA's_ ("chicanos" was one of the many bluntly affectionate nicknames) were hunter killers. Nuclear powered behemoths that could sneak up to ships and shower them with missiles or slink in and crack their backbones with torpedoes. They were the quietest ships in the ocean to date, and they could stay silent at a speed of almost thirty knots at a three hundred meter depth.

The thirty attack subs that made up of the leading arm of the Atlantic Task force were acting as feelers ahead of the fleet, marking positions over the Iridium satellite network for the main fleet and its carriers behind them. The subs were the most important part of the task force, they were the intelligence arm and were the leading edge of the sword for the fleet. They'd clear the way for the rest of the Task Force as they chugged to Iceland.

Why Iceland? Euros in possessions of the Island could make use of the two major airfields on the island. From that foothold on the island they could strike at all Atlantic shipping lanes at will with their air power. They could disrupt the planned invasion of Europe by the JSF. So it was up to the Atlantic Task Force to clean up the threat.

But they would have to deal with the European Navy first.

"Change bearing: standard port rudder three three zero. Make your speed ten knots." Toland wanted to sneak up on that contact, whether it was a submarine or a ship. He activated the intercom.

"Sonar, Conn, reevaluate contact."

A short pause as Kennedy listened to his headphones. He was an astounding sonarman, an extraordinary man out of a mold of extraordinary men. Sonarmen were loaded with the most important task in the Navy, spending maybe hours upon hours listening for the faintest of sounds that meant something man made was out there. "Sir" he responded finally. "definitely hear something faint off at three four five. Sounds like…twin screws. Really quiet."

"That's a Foxtrot then." The Executive officer, Nolan, said to Toland. The Euros called that nuclear attack sub something else but to the USN it was designated as a "foxtrot". They weren't as quiet as their older Chicano counterparts but at sprinting speeds they were said to make more than forty knots. It was always a good thing to be able to outrun your opponent.

But sub warfare was all about silence.

"Transient! Transient!" Kennedy shouted from his station. The term "transient" meant a clearly mechanical or manmade noise, whether it was the whine of a nuclear steam plant, or even something as insignificant as an engineer dropping a wrench- "transient at Three five zero, Evaluate possible submarine, range to target three kilometers. Designating contact Tango one."

"Sound general quarters. Set for Red." Toland ordered Nolan. Nolan nodded and reached for the intercom.

"_General quarters, all hands to battle stations." _Those that were in their bunks, sleeping off the night watch were immediately roused and raced to fire control stations and manned their posts. Most of the crewmen were already at their stations. The conn became instantly dark save for the red emergency light that kept everyone lit in a crimson afterglow.

"Set up the shot PWO" Toland snapped at the principle weapons officer. At the weapons console, Petty Officer Evers linked up his computer with the sonar where Kennedy was marking the target on his own computer.

"Mark 48s loaded, flooding tubes three and four. Opening outer doors, firing solution: sixty seconds."

"Conn, Sonar! Tango one's increased to flank, positively identify contact as Foxtrot class. Coming port to starboard now. Make speed thirty knots and climbing! He knows we're here sir!"

Shit. They blew cover. He probably heard _Chicago'_s tubes flooding. The captain was smart, he knew he was found and now was putting some distance between his boat and the _Chicago_. But he was passing in front of them, "crossing the T" was the term. At a maximum speed of forty knots, that gave Toland a scant eight minutes to line up the shot and fire. Eight minutes to kill the sucker or he would go back and harass the fleet.

"Go active! Reevaluate firing solution!" Nolan barked. Toland remained silent picturing the battle. The European foxtrot was crossing ahead of them at a range of three kilometers from port to starboard. His twin Mark 48s were wire guided torpedoes capable of outrunning the Foxtrot with a speed of forty four knots. If he lead the target right, his torpedoes would strike home and take out their target.

Kennedy keyed a button switching the sonar from passive to active where the sub sent out one tone pings to evaluate range to target on the return sound.

"Sir he's flooding tubes!" Kennedy shouted

"Down planes , make your speed twenty knots!" Nolan shouted and walked over to the helmsman.

" Belay that." Toland ordered quietly but with all the authority the captain was given. "switch units to go active after leaving the tubes, then we go emergency deep."

"Firing solution!" the officer shouted. Toland had a shot.

"Match bearings and shoot!"

"Fire three, fire four electronically! Torpedoes are active and pinging!"

"Cut the wires: Emergency deep now!" the Executive officer barked and the sub commenced a deep dive. They would make a lot of noise and hopefully mask the approach of the incoming torpedoes.

"Slow to twenty knots, right full rudder make bearing zero four five." Toland ordered.

"Make my bearing zero four five aye."

"Torpedoes have acquired the target…Noisemakers he's firing noisemakers."

"Set up another shot Mr. Evers. One unit, Mark thirty seven." Noisemakers were the best countermeasure for homing torpedoes like the Mark 48. It wouldn't have been a problem if they were wire guided but Toland had his wires cut as he attempted to move evasively and throw off the firing solution for the Euro boat. Mark 48s were older but they packed a good punch. Mark thirty sevens had better more advanced tracking capabilities, but they lacked that punch of the Mark forty eights. European ships were notoriously fragile but they more than made up for it with the accuracy of their torpedoes and their quick ships.

"Torpedo three has been diverted, torpedo four is still on target."

"Tango one has accelerated to forty four knots sir!" Kennedy shouted. That Foxtrot must be redlining her reactors. The captain was really pushing it.

"Flooding tube two, opening outer doors." Evers keyed more buttons under Nolan's watchful eye. "Firing solution in twenty seconds, give me a ping."

The tone rang out like a death knell.

"Got him! Range one thousand meters!-Firing solution!"

"Hold fire." An explosion reverberated through the water. "that was torpedo three!" Kennedy shouted. "He's gone emergency deep, emergency flooding and full down planes! Torpedo four has missed!" his change of depth and the extra weight of water would slow the enemy foxtrot down significantly.

"Readjusting solution- give me another ping!"

Another toll of the bell.

"Range nine hundred! Firing solution!"

"Shoot!" Toland ordered

"Fire two electronically!"

"Fish in the water! Fish in the water, two torpedoes coming in three six zero."

"All stop, reactors cold! Shoot of countermeasures!" Nolan ordered. "Cut the wires and switch torpedo two to active!" by shutting down the reactor, the screws would stop making noise and the ship would lose buoyancy dropping slightly. By shooting of noisemakers, and with the lack of sound of submarine screws, the enemy torpedoes would most likely require on them.

"Right full rudder, down planes!" Toland barked.

"Torpedoes have acquired noisemakers." Kennedy said. "Our unit is pinging-they have the target. He's shooting off noisemakers."

The subs forward momentum would allow it for another six hundred yards of travel as it dived down and to the right far out of the way of the noisemakers. But would the euro torpedoes take the bait? Would Toland's own torpedo make its mark?

Two explosions reverberated through the hull. Then Kennedy's ecstatic voice. "That's a kill! Splash one Foxtrot! His hulls breaking up!" a cheer went up in the Conn. The battle for the Atlantic had begun, with the death of a European sub and the fifty proud European seamen it held.

"We're not done yet." Toland ordered. "restart reactors, bring us to periscope death and raise the ELM mast. There's still more subs out there, we've got to kill every last one. Let's do that."


	2. Commanders and Conquerors

"_Komraden_." General Weber began. "we hold a vital area in this battle for the Atlantic, our position at Keflavik airfield lets us strike from here to the equator at will." He was giving a briefing to his thousand member audience in Keflavik's auditorium. Few of them were native Icelanders, Weber regarded them with some skepticism. Iceland didn't have a proud warrior tradition, the island was too small even to rate a large satellite uplink connection but the war in space wasn't all this new war was about. Rules that applied ever since the Prussians united _Deutchland_ Germany still could be applied today. _True rules of warfare, cannot be broken if one wants to achieve victory._

"and the _Amerikaners_ know this! They know the threat we of Europe represent, and they have sent their mighty battlefleet to deal with us." He looked among all their faces, most were unfamiliar, those that belonged to the Icelander pilots and crew but there were familiar faces. They were combat veterans from the European mainland, drawn from Spain, France, Italy and Germany. All were stern, they knew their duty. "I will not lie or shoot my men some _schiecza_ propaganda line. Their Atlantic fleet-"

He depressed the remote in his hand and the electronic projector displayed the latest satellite imagery, over two hours old.

"consists of six aircraft battle groups combined into one massive task force, numbering over three hundred ships in all. Their aircraft on the flight decks alone allows them to put six hundred birds aloft, and we all know the threat their F-19 represents to us. Their _Nimitz _class carriers are still the biggest carriers known to date, so big in fact they are given the term _Super_carrier."

"But we are descendents of the knights of old. We have royal blood in our veins and our history shows we have the bravest most valiant soldiers in the world. Let us show these _Amerikaner_ what it means to fight those of pure blood!"

"Now, to counter their move our fleet from Normandy moves to the coast of Ireland and rendezvousing with them are the Spanish and Portugease carriers and the Norwegian and Dutch fleets. Italy's twin carrier battle groups will be holding the entrance to the Mediterranean, we will not be relying on them for offensive action."

"What of the United Kingdom and Ireland? Would they not move to support the United States in this conflict?" a pilot asked.

"As you know the United Kingdom is currently dealing with their own civil disputes, what with the resurgence of the IRA on Northern Ireland and the Green Vox cells that have intermingled with the IRA, they have declared neutrality to the war and declared total exclusion zones in their waters. We must put our faith in diplomats to secure our continent's northern front. If they were to ally themselves with the US, they would face the combined might of Europe, a battle we would surely crush them in. Now-"

He activated the slide projector to display a picture of the ocean.

"The images shown here, are over two hours old, as of the last satellite flyby. Said satellite was quickly destroyed by US kinetic weapons satellites. As of this moment, both US and European defense satellites have been moved out of range by respective leaders, the European Federation wants to keep our orbitals in reserve for the defense of Europe if needed. It is up to us and our _komraden_ in the fleet to destroy the American fleet, if we do not. We risk the destruction of our homes and the rape and pillage of our families. _Komraden_ these next months will be the most brutal of our very short lives, but they will be the moment we have trained for every moment up to these. You all know your duties, dismissed."

And with that, each man and woman in the auditorium saluted smartly and filed out, and Weber almost felt he could hear the silent anthem of Europe being sung in their hearts.

* * *

The roar of aircraft rocked the interior of the bridge tower of the supercarrier USS _Abraham Lincoln_ ever so slightly. Vice Admiral Jameson sipped his coffee as it rocked with the vibrations ever so slightly. The twin F-19 Bobcat interceptors jinked to a lower altitude and screamed less than five meters away from the superstructure of their mother carrier and two meters above the water.

Those birds were new, they were the next generation Naval interceptor and the top of the line in the world. There were so few of them in service though, with the US caught flatfooted transitioning to their next generation war machines in the middle of a war, the venerable F/A-18 was still in service alongside the newer F-35B. Not many people knew the capabilities of the Navy's newest toy, a problem Jamesson sought to correct immediately. He already knew they were fast and maneuverable as all single seat interceptors were. They implemented the latest in stealth technology borrowing the diamond design that the F-22 Raptor and the F-117 Nighthawk had implemented so successfully and the stealth coating reduced their radar cross section. They stole the swept wing design of the F-14 Tomcat giving it unparalleled range, speed and maneuverability to any fighter deployed in the sea at this time. Jameson ran closely monitored combat air patrols as exercises pushing the new pilots and their machines to their limits. The pilots loved it, often "buzzing" the picket ships of the fleet. Buzzing was a term pilots used for closing in on their target, relying on their stealth and coming in fast and low. At the last second,bobcat pilots would pull up and bang their search radars on the target. The US ships had yet to see one on radar with its transponder deactivated. They were, in Jamesson's opinion, the best fighter in the world.

But they couldn't be relied on. There were less than three dozen in the fleet, they would be relying on Hornets for most of the interceptor work and F-35s for bombing. It would be hard to take on the combined fleets of the European federation, but not impossible. Admiral Jameson was still under land based coverage of US air but he needed to take the fight to them. A petty officer manning the Electronics Satellite Mast printed something out and walked over to Jameson. Jameson nodded and looked at the sheet.

To: ACTUALCC-177

FROM:COMATFLT

ENCRYPTION KEY******

DECTYPTION KEY ******

MASSIVE EUROPEAN FLEET ON INTERCEPT X ENGAGE AND DESTROY ASAP X RULES OF ENGAGEMENT OPTION TAC 1 X GOD BE WITH YOU X

Rules of engagement, TAC 1: no nuclear weapons. It was a political move although a little less practical. It denied Jameson's submarine captains the option of slipping through the Euro defense net (if they could) and firing off a nuclear torpedo and taking a good part of their fleet with it. That was the problem with being the good guy sometimes, more straightforward options were denied to you.

"Sir, USS Chicago reports hard contact with enemy foxtrot." Another man at the ESM said. "So does USS Miami. Both contacts have been killed."

"Mark their positions. Captain-" he turned to Captain Dales. This was the man that ran Abraham Lincoln, Jameson was just basically just using this ship as a home. "Please reroute their contact coordinates into the CIC, I will be down there if you need me."

Dales nodded and gave the order as Jameson climbed down the stairs and into the Combat Information Center. As it always was, it was dark save for the glow of the dozens of computers that occupied it. There were no viewports to the outside, and it was hardened to protect it from airstrikes. The Combat Information Center on the Abraham Lincoln in particular, was vital: it was the nucleus for the entire Atlantic Task Force. The thirty subs, mixed Virginia and Los Angeles class boats were sweeping forward and marking up the enemy positions, already Jameson knew where the leading elements of the Euro fleet was, there was a small task force off Iceland, mostly frigates and destroyers and a pocket carrier with only six fighters but it was a negligible defense. European Subs were still on the prowl however and Jameson's fleet was always in danger of them. And of course there was always the enemy air force based off Iceland that they were dealing with, when would that come into play?

One of the radar men shouted as his screen abruptly went white with static. Two others looked back in surprise as the same thing happened to their screens.

* * *

The European SAAB – 71 Sentinel Radar craft had been aloft and circling for more than eight hours and were almost bingo fuel. Modern Naval combat was almost like a massive game of hide and go seek, only the person that jumped out and found you first usually had a couple missiles and cannon locked on. The Sentinels like all AWACs type craft, could detect the US ships with their powerful big bulge radars, also could detect the radiological emissions of a ship type radar. This made it easier for the Sentinels to find the ships, all the radiomen had to do was lock onto the origin source, identify the type of air search radar and send ships that way.

If said ships decided to actually activate their search radar. The controllers and pilots of these Sentinels had great fear of ships randomly switching their radar off and on, if the sentinels were detected less than 50 miles from the fleet, they'd have Surface to Air missile fire on them faster than an Irishman reaching for the next pint.

"I have contact at long range," said the radar officer of the leading Sentinel "Confirmed Cruiser air search big bulge radar."

"We have them." The pilot breathed a sigh of relief. Cruisers were always placed close to the carriers or if not, carriers wouldn't be far away. "Let's get our boys up here and at them."

In hushed tones the radar officer switched to a secure channel and broadcasted strike information to the other Sentinels. Soon there were twenty SAAB – 71s circling the US fleet, out of range of the Missile cruiser's search radar and the carriers still had not switched their own radars on yet. They quickly relayed information to squadron leaders and got them in formation . All was ready. This strike was all about coordination and speed.

A large blip appeared on the screen at the most inopportune moment. It was a blessing and a curse. A blessing: there was indeed a carrier in the fleet. A curse: the Americans knew there was an attack underway. The radar officer cursed and warned everyone as he flipped the crossband jamming frequencies to full. Their fleet would be receiving white noise and static all across their shipboard radars now.

"Long range jamming!" the Electronics Warfare officer confirmed. "Origin point, three five zero Northwest. Big Bulge Radars-They've got Sentinels!"

"Go to condition red." Jameson said and walked over to the intercom as the CIC went from no light to red lighting as the ship was brought to full alert and crewmen scrambled to their action stations. The alarm bell sounded all across the ship sending men and women to their posts in a heartbeat. "Flight control, shoot off the alert five squadrons, let's get all our interceptors up there first."

On the flight deck, as the F-19 pilots raced to their fighters and their red and green jacketed flight crew scrambled to remove safety pins on their ordnance, the two pilots already on the catapults tossed their coffee over the sides and slipped their helmets on as they punched the starter keys. The Combat Flight Patrol fighters were low on fuel and wouldn't be able to stay up much longer, the two Bobcats wheeled in for landing as the next two were shot off their catapults and the next pair rolled into position. The first carrier battle in more than eighty years was about to be fought, and the battle for the Atlantic, for the majority of those in the Navy was about to begin.


	3. Scramble and Furball

Captain Fosker of the United Naval Squadron -162, the Swift Intruders, felt the Gs of the catapult launch no more than a slight pressure on his abdomen, his G suit diffused gravitational forces all around him and was functioning perfectly. Blacking out from high G turns was a thing of the past in this time. "Romeo" Fosker tugged the stick right and began a covering circle to wait for the next pair of Bobcats to shoot off. In less than ten minutes, the entire twelve man squadron of the Swift Intruders was airborne and ready for targets. They spread out and raced off flipping their powerful air search radars to try to burn through enemy jamming.

"Got them lead I have burn through, one bandit on zero six zero." Intruder seven said as he came activated his air search radar.

"Got more. All around us, counting about twenty." Intruder twelve agreed.

"Star Base," Fosker called to the USS Abraham Lincoln's flight controller. "Romeo, got bogeys all around three hundred and sixty degrees, counting no more than twenty five. Requesting weapons free and Release to intercept vectors."

"_Star Base to all wings" _ the flight controller ordered over the channel override "_weapons are free, say again: weapons free. Released to engage on all vector intercepts. Splash me some bogeys."_

"You heard boys, lets take them out." Fosker said "Stay with your wingman and make sure you don't get overconfident, they could have escorts out there." Of course, if they did, the escorts wouldn't know what hit them. Bobcats had stealth coating that was _supposed_ to be invisible on radar, even at close range. "Stay on your vectors and cover each other so we can all go home tonight."

"Last one to splash pays for drinks." Intruder four said.

Fosker pinged the air search radar with a rapid flip of the "on/off" switch and set aside a target for himself. He nosed down, then boosted forward, Intruder two piloted by Whiplash tucked in at his four o'clock slot. This was true flying, flashing towards the enemy at low altitude and over Mach 1 required every bit of skill in Fosker's experience simultaneously mentally calculating the distance and time it would take for him to reach his target. He'd been flying for almost ten years by now, and this was war. Adrenaline fueled bodies increased reaction time and sharpened senses beyond Fosker's comprehension. At less of what he judged to be a kilometer away from his target, Fosker sharply nosed up and hit the afterburners. He would be shooting into the sun and he wanted that disadvantage to only be temporary. There it was: the sentinel was a lame duck circling at less than 100 knotts and four thousand meters above sea level, just above cloud cover. The Razorback's integrated HUD drew a red box around the enemy craft and though Fosker couldn't actually see the SAAB, he knew where it was and that was all he needed for the missile to fire. The high pitched tone pipped then screeched with a good lock.

"Tallyho!, Bandit twelve o'clock! I've got tone!" he armed his AIM-10 Quarrel radar seeking interceptor missiles and depressed the trigger. "Fox three!" and hauled the stick to pull out of the climb and level out and circle.

In the second it had taken for the Bobcat to climb and fire, the Sentinel's radar officer received a warning on his infared heat seeking component, a pair of hot orbs was climbing fast and-now there were three as the first pair veered off sharply!

"Incoming!" the officer warned the pilot. Instinctively the pilot dove forward and fired off anti radar chaff – sheets of metal foil that would create an image that might fool a radar seeking missile. At the same time the copilot activated the jamming pods and shut off the radar and ship radar jamming, anything to fool the deadly thing. He called for help from escort fighters, but they were six kilometers away and the enemy fighters were too close for the Sentinel to broadcast targeting information.

The missile was already locked onto its target with a singleminded purpose and it did that beautifully, detonating on the Sentinel's left wing engine which snapped it off and sent both wing and craft tumbling into the water.

"Kill that's a kill!" Fosker howled, and raced back to cover the fleet. He'd be painting at least one European Federation flag on his fighter by the end of this day.

All across the board, the jamming switched off one by one in a slow domino effect. Some Sentinels were swatted down by the Bobcats but others were lucky enough to get away. They were prop driven craft, slow and the F-19s were hot on their tail but soon they circled back to face the new threat: incoming long range bombers off Iceland, maybe a hundred kilometers off and closing at 300 knotts, they were smart, they were ringed around the fleet and spaced so that each fighter wouldn't be able to engage pairs at a time.

The Lightnings were shooting off now, and there were nearly seventy aircraft airborne, not nearly enough. Sixty Eurofighter Typhoons streaked in low, trying to mask their presence by the waves, flying under radar to reduce their cross sections, but unbeknownst to them, the Raptors were watching.

* * *

Major McDonall of New York Air National Guard Squadron Twelve "The Baseplates", almost jumped in her seat as she saw her chance. It wasn't supposed to be a combat flight. Her 4 F-22s were equipped with only two aging AIM- 6 sidewinders and 500 rounds for the twenty mike mike each and they were supposed to be escorting the Prime Minister of Greenland back to his country. He'd denied entrance into the war on the US's side, understandable. And she would be bucking orders if she engaged those European G-12 Tiger attack bombers right now, but they were ripe targets, with their escorts too low to engage her squad. She made her decision quickly.

"United two seven niner." She spoke to the Prime minister's plane. "we're going to break off and engage those bandits, tell the prime minister we're sorry."

"Baseplate lead, you get back into position right now-"

"Buns" Mcdonall shut off her connection to that channel.

"Lets get them Baseplates!"

"Tallyho!" Baseplate two, Farmer shouted. They were national guard, not part of regular air force, they didn't expect to be seeing much, if any action. "Bandits three o'clock low!"

McDonall was locked on and firing before she even realized she had acquired a target and opened her missile bay doors. "Fox two!" four Sidewinders flashed the short distance to their targets, four bombers suddenly realized they had company and dived, firing countermeasures all the way down. All four were hit, the surprise of the attack too much for them to defend against, three went down, and the last turned to limp away home. The remaining six Tigers screamed for their escorts to cover them. Eight bandits peeled off of their attack run to climb toward the raptors.

McDonall paid them no mind, in fact all she could see was her next target. They closed the two mile distance almost too fast for her to fire a two second burst from her cannon that trailed wingtip to wingtip. A hail of 20 mm cannon rounds tore through the armor of the Tiger and detonated the antiship missile inside. The raptor swerved sharply away as the bomber exploded in its wake.

But now she couldn't ignore the enemy fighters trying to paint a lock on her fighter. She inverted and dived for the sea, suddenly realizing she had no clue where her wingmates were. But one of them, Baseplate three shouted a warning over the India band.

"Baseplate three calling to any US forces in range, we have engaged enemy fighters over the Atlantic, mark my position, can anyone assist? Repeat, need assistance!"

McDonall pulled out of her steep dive barely a meter above the crashing waves and climbed on her afterburner, an enemy in hot pursuit. She checked her rearview mirror and spied a bulbous smaller turret on the underside of the nose. That was bad news, these were new Hailstorms equipped with a hydrogen laser. They lacked missiles but they were still deadly, that hydrogen laser could hit a dime at ranges of well over forty kilometers. This was an enemy who didn't have to worry about ammunition. As if to prove the point the weapon flashed blue in her rearview mirror forcing McDonall to instinctively jink again.

Baseplate three called again. And again. No one responded.

McDonall dove again, then cut her throttle, letting the Hailstorm behind her overshoot and brought her targeting reticle on her target for less than a second. At a range of five hundred meters, the AIM-6 dropped from her bomb bay and shot off. The hailstorm activated its electronic jamming pods and tried to evade. The fighter banked left sharply, the sidewinder veered to the right, but McDonall was right behind the fighter and let fly with a three second burst.

She didn't see it connect, a flash of blue to her right instinctively made her turn. Two more hailstorms were converging on her. They shot past her and turned impossibly tightly to follow.

"Baseplate lead! To any US forces-"

The pair of hailstorms veered off suddenly but weren't quick enough to escape the pair of missiles that exploded them. The rest of the fighters scattered and broke contact as more missiles broke their ranks. In the confusion, two of them died along with a Tiger bomber.

"Baseplate, Wild Card seven, aren't you supposed to be at another party right now?"

Four F-19s streaked in, joker cards were painted underneath their cockpits with their callsigns on the cards.

McDonall only laughed in reply. "Baseplates, form up and lets head back to base." The Razorbacks of Wild Card squadron waggled their wings and dived to hit the rest of the bombers. But they were too late: the Tigers opened their bomb bay doors and fired their heavy Air to Surface EXORSET – 100 missiles at the US fleet.


	4. Dance of the Vampires

"Confirmed, seventy two bandits, main threat axis zero nine zero, designating Raid one." The Radar officer said as the bomber sized blips appeared on his radar screen.

Jamesson tore his eyes away from the battle plot where all contacts were displayed, the US forces were labeled blue. Hostiles painted in red closed in at all sides in a wide circle. Blue tagged US fighters closed the distance quickly, stealthed F-19s would spearhead the assault and hold off as many as they could while the rest of the planes could scramble, but it wouldn't be enough, if those Tigers were equipped with the newest French air to surface missile-

"Vampire vampire!" the radar officer on the bridge screamed. "Incoming missiles, threat axis confirmed type EXORSET -100."

The Tigers volleyed off their missiles from over a hundred miles out, then turned and hit their after burners to hightail it out of there, Bobcats in hot pursuit. The first Lightnings were scrambling into the air now, but there were far too many planes on the deck. The ships of the US fleet began maneuvering wildly to try to throw off missile locks and not collide with each other at the same time.

"Right full rudder, all ahead flank!" Captain Dale snapped, "Bring us zero nine zero starboard. Mr Tomson," he turned to the man on the weapons console "Unmask missiles and illuminate counterbattery radar, weapons are free!" the ship turned sharply to starboard, it made it impossible for the remaining fighters to launch especially since now they were sailing with the wind but those fighters wouldn't be able to launch with an EXORSET warhead penetrating the hull and snapping the carrier in two either. He wasn't sure what an EXORSET could actually do to his ship but he sure as hell didn't want to find out.

"Numbers Mr. Hoshi, I want numbers on incoming vampires." He snapped at the radar officer .

"Sir, count one hundred forty six incoming missiles, six-" his response was drowned out by the roaring hiss of the carrier's interceptor missiles being fired off. At a hundred and fifty miles, Tomson had triggered off his radar interceptor missile launchers and fired them off. Capable of firing six missiles a minute, each of Lincoln's two launchers selected targets and fired at the incoming missiles. There was a huge problem however.

Abraham Lincoln had a total of twelve missiles on the deck, prioritized to hit the nearest target first. But the system had not been battle tested, and previous tests had only been done against twelve missiles fired from one direction. All twelve had been splashed in the test. But now there were a hundred and forty six incomings coming from all around the ship. And after all twelve missiles were spent it would be at least ten minutes to reload all twelve tubes. One by one incoming missile were shot down as the rest of the fleet activated their countermeasures but there were too many and there were too spread out for every missile to engage them. The F/A 35s were doing their best but they would have at best a second to acquire a target passing around them at Mach 6, they would be lucky to even snap a missile off. Plus they had to deal with the fighters.

At twenty five miles, ships began shooting off their countermeasures,R-BOC canister flares and chaff tubes rocketed high in the air attempting to divert the target as radar officers on all ships shut off their search radars. Ten miles, frigates and destroyers opened up with their five inch guns loaded with flak, missiles were falling off the display but too slowly, far too slowly there were at least sixty missiles streaking towards the fleet. The last line of defense activated five miles out, anti-air twenty millimeter rotary cannons burped to life red tracers streaking out in the distance.

"Hard to port!" Dale shouted at the helmsmen "Left full rudder, all ahead one third."

"Negative Negative!" the flight controller shouted, Dale turned "you do not have permission to launch, say again you do not have permission to launch!"

Two F-35s fully loaded attempted a vertical takeoff to clear up the deck. The ship lurched and the vertical liftoff caused the fighters to drift dangerously close to the bridge tower but they managed to turn away and avoid a collision. The pair of fighters jetted off searching for targets.

This European attack had thrown the US fleet off balance, surprise and speed were with them. Dale was in command of one of the biggest most well protected ships in the fleet, how were the other ships doing? How were the defenseless merchantmen ferrying the landing troops coping?

* * *

Colonel Alicia Diaz scrambled her troops of the 12th tactical Joint Strike Force battalion onto the deck. All hell was breaking loose in the fleet, and here she was on the most vulnerable ship in the entire damn thing!

"Get those eagles into the air!" she barked over the command channel as her Blackfoot gunship squadrons began spooling up their blades. The Valkyrie's, VTOL aircraft descendant from the old Osprey were much slower and took longer to spool up. Her Ghosts and Pioneers were suiting up now, many of them without helmets as they hurried to be loaded onto their craft.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, usually there would be JSF Amphibious unit task force carriers at her disposal, but they were being used to ferry the other six JSF battalions, leaving another three spread out across nine defenseless merchantmen.

"What's going on here?" she shouted at her Major who was similarly suited up minus helmet, her sharp eyes "sniper eyes" were old, she suddenly noticed that none of the pioneers had their computers or Javelin missile launchers either. "Why aren't you all suited up?"

"Shits broken Ma'am!" the Major Hikowa her second in command shouted back. "They've got water damage and some of the stuff fused. Circuitry's ruined, it'll take a couple hours to dry if they even can!"

"That doesn't make sense!" Diaz screamed over the roar of the ocean and her first gunships lifting off. "Our equipment is waterproofed, surely they've tested that properly!"

"They didn't expect our shit to get wet with salt water!" Hikowa retorted "we have one WIA below deck, his helmet sparked when he put it on!"

Goddamn. Nothing was working right, the merchant ship that crewed her battalion was lurching violently left and right to shake a missile lock, the thing hadn't any chaff or countermeasures and her battalion was left up to the mercy of a captain who couldn't defend himself against a new EXORSET. Worse come to worse, most of her men and women would be able to get off alive, secured on Valkyries but her Schwartzkopf tanks and Fastback IFVs were still stuck below deck, the hovercraft that was supposed to deploy them hadn't had enough time to spool up and warm its engines and before it would even be ready those missiles would hit. She had to do something, she was used to taking action.

A former sniper on Ghost Recon's Team Alpha she'd pounded it out with Captain Scott Mitchell (now general) and then managed to elevate her career to a Lt. Colonel in charge of her own battalion of three hundred proud soldiers.

Her aggressive combat tactics earned her the praise of her former and current commanding officer Mitchell and the 12th was one of the finest the JSF could call on. But now she was helpless, and she wasn't used to being helpless. Her mind raced for an option, her Javelin's were out of commission, fantasy would have it that maybe enterprising snipers (the finest in the JSF she was sure, though that was probably her former sniper's ego speaking) would be able to shoot down the missiles with their high powered rifles before they hit? No that was for the movies.

She watched a passing frigate, the USS Davy Crockett, unleash another missile off into the blue. If only her Javelin's were working she might be able to hit, but something nagged her in the back of her mind, something she had forgotten. It was back in her days as a Ghost Recon operative, where her squadmates often preferred the newer toys the US military could offer, she was used to older weapons.

Her comrades in Ghost Recon loved using the MR-C gun camera mount to shoot around corners. She had handcrafted her SRC-2100, widening the barrel to fire a .50 caliber Remington at such a velocity she could hit targets up to a mile off and have the bullet pass through without considerably slowing down. She remembered that weapon well, it was old fashioned but she loved it, from its ugly black Kevlar finish she polished till she could see her own reflection in it , to the 6x/12x zoom night vision hunting scope she would snap onto the rail integration attatchment, to the two and a half pound trigger which would send her messenger of death with but a twitch. That rifle was still stowed away in her house in Norfolk Virginia. That was how she had fought wars back then, a traditionalist in the world of growing technology and electronics.

Old? this merchant vessel had deployed during the Iran-Saudi crisis less than ten years ago and the captain still kept some of the wars toys below decks just by the bridge tower, he'd taken it on himself to show Diaz earlier. The "armory" he called it as he showed her the arsenal of AT-4 TOW missiles and HK416s, and M40 sniper rifles and Stinger AA missile launchers-

Stingers?

"Major!" she gestured thrusted her finger in the direction of the ships armory "Remember the armory? Its got old stinger missile launchers and ammunition, grab what you can and get every man on the deck, we're going to shoot those missiles down!"

"Sir!" Hikowa nodded and signaled for the mustering ghosts to go and grab the missiles. The problem would be actually getting a lock on the missiles. They'd be coming in low, and fast crossing mile length areas in less than a second, would the stingers be able to acquire?

Diaz's ghosts rushed onto the deck with over a dozen stinger missiles and enough spare ammunition for one more volley. She hefted one herself feeling her old bones give way slightly under the weight. It had been a long time since she had personally participated in any action. It brought back the years that she thought had wasted away while she was chained to the desk of command. Something shined in the distance, just over the horizon.

"There!" Hikowa shouted and pointed at the sparkling star. There were at least six of them. Diaz flipped down the glass sights for the missile launcher and reverted to her training. She steadied her aim by slowing her breath down. She had to compensate for the way the deck leaned with every turn of the ship and the rocking of the waves. Her stinger began piping a lock tone which soon became constant. She triggered off her missile, the force of the jet nearly knocking her backwards. Twelve missiles sped off into the blue, targeting the not so far off incomings. The Davy Crockett crossed Diaz's line of sight again, its five inch gun blazing as it pumped out its flak rounds.

It had been going so smoothly until those Sentinels had appeared, and they were too close to the fleet. The combat flight patrol had missed them, or they hadn't reported back in. Who fucked up? Captain Brown slipped his hands over the edges of the viewports of the bridge as if he could reach out and control the chaos that had consumed the fleet. The steady retort of the his frigates 5 inch cannon mixed with the firing of yet another R-BOC canister throwing metallic foil into the air where it sailed like confetti pitifully into the water.

* * *

USS Davy Crockett had a 40 year history of service in the Fleet, and Brown had been captaining her for a good six years now. The frigate had one of the most important jobs, defending the carriers against incoming threats like the hundred and forty six missiles coming towards them right now. The radio bands were filled with panicked chatter as captains reported their movements to the flag, USS Abraham Lincoln. It was absolute chaos on the orderly bridge too. Although he had been captaining the ship for six years, all of his veterans had been transferred to other commands, some of them even promoted. These seamen were new, fresh out of training and their greenness was getting to him. They didn't respond as smoothly to his commands, just lacked that…emphasis that a veteran crew had.

"How many missiles are locked onto us Mr. Garcia?"

"Sir I count six incoming missiles locked on and homing! Prioritizing fire sir but they're too close to hit with flak!"

Brown winced, it only took one EXORSET to ruin your entire day. And his maneuvering didn't have much chance of shaking 6 missiles. Almost as soon as he was about to give another order Garcia gave a shout.

"Splash one splash two! Two missiles down!"

"Good shooting!" agreed Lieutenant Raken, Brown's executive officer.

There were still four incoming. And they were now within distance so Brown could see the missiles, bright specks in the distance.

"Sound the collision." Brown said which was repeated by Raken to the radio officer who then sounded the signal over the ship's intercom.

"Brace Brace Brace!", the crew scrambled to latch themselves onto any part of the ship to prevent themselves from being thrown against metal bolts during the violence of an explosion.

"Way to go Joint Strike Force!" Garcia suddenly shouted, Brown turned to see the trails of six missiles tear off to leave the merchant ship they had just past alongside, in a staggered salvo six more were volleyed off. Two flashes in the distance.

"Splash two more!"

Two missiles left. "Time to impact?"

"thirty seconds and counting!" Garcia said, it was a tense fifteen seconds of only the distant pounding of guns and shriek of missiles before Brown gave his order.

"Hard to starboard, Right full rudder, all engines reverse! Fire an R-BOC!"

The bridge crew raced to command, the helmsman hit the reverse on his throttle throwing the switch as far back as it would go, Garcia on weapons control fired their sixth and final R-BOC countermeasure canister and the Davy Crocket turned into the missiles and began churning back in her baffles. Brown whispered a quick prayer for this to work.

The roaring wail of two EXORSETs flying low over the bridge was soon drowned out as one turned high and spun out, diverted by the canister, the second collided into the water throwing five hundred gallons high into the air with the resulting explosion.

Five seconds of silence in the bridge crew, then one by one cheers rang out all across the Davy Crockett. They'd survived their first attack without a scratch and the relief and adrenaline rush was flooding back to them. Brown wiped sweat off his brow and smiled easily, he could get through this, the US could win the war.

"Damage reports on the fleet, Mr. Raken?"

"Sir, it looks like-

Another shipmate interrupted and cried out an incoming warning. She was the antisubmarine warfare officer.


	5. Fish and Hammer

"Torpedo in the water!" Petty Officer Farmer sounded out from her station "crossing starboard to port, four leagues out, single screws, counting in four - no six make that six fish in the water!"

"Bring us zero two five starboard, all ahead two thirds!" Captain Brown spat his orders out rapidly "Sonar, how did he get in so close?"

Farmer thought for a moment as she listened to the high pitched wine of the torpedoes over the low cavitation noises of US frigates and destroyers scrambling for evasive maneuvers- "The fleet covered the boats approach sir, all this maneuvering's churned up the water and badly, the sub must've slipped in while we turned"

"Can you find him Ms. Farmer?" Brown asked as the ship lurched violently forward, finally responding to going back up to two thirds forward velocity after a full speed reverse.

"Working-" Farmer gritted her teeth and stared at the sono screen as it matched sounds detected on the sonar with submarine profiles on the Davy Crockett's computer manifest. The problem was that with so many ships in such close proximity, the towed array sonar was picking up all kinds of mixed noises, so many that they were overlapping. Farmer worked the keys furiously as she tried to isolate the signal, it would help to know what she was looking for though. The low buzz of an Alpha attack sub? The deep thrum of a Delta? The twin screwed whine of a Foxtrot? So many things to consider, the range and speed of the enemy subs and the screeching screws of the torpedoes wasn't helping her concentrate any-

There, only for a second she definitely heard something man made, a transient contact. It was so faint, some sonar operators might have missed it completely. Farmer however, didn't ruin her ears by blasting that rap or metal crap every minute of her childhood. She listened to opera and she could detect the very faint pitch now of two- maybe three screws? She sifted though the computer screen, isolating each signal after signal as she checked back on the torpedoes-

"they've cut wires!" she shouted "confirmed on the fish, European type 98s tracking and homing now sir-"

"Homing where?" Raken snapped

Farmer tore her eyes off the first screen and matched the bearing of the torpedoes with their speed-

"They've fired at the Lincoln!"

"Shit." Farmer turned, it wasn't often a Captain or anyone in the bridge would resort to cursing, the navy was supposed to be fluid jargon and that was it. It showed her how bad the situation was. She shook her head and returned to her task, isolating out the background cavitation sounds, she ran the noises trying to match them with their classes, she colored a few different recognizing them as faint destroyer screws and set them aside leaving her with a tinge of purple on the screen that would have been a messy scribble to anyone but a trained Sonarwoman on a USN frigate. She listened to the isolated noise- there she had them.

"Got ID on hostiles, two of them one Foxtrot one diesel powered Echo! Designating contacts Tango One and Tango two. "

"An Echo?" Raken turned "They're short range, they couldn't get all the way out here without support."

"Foxtrot's a big boat Raken." Brown said, oddly calm as he stared at the USS Abraham Lincoln. The thing would be going up in flames in less than two minutes. "Could very well be able to supply an Echo all the way out here. Either that or they've got a fueling ship nearby which we completely missed. Mr. Garcia get Hatchet up there, we've got subs to kill."

"Aye sir." Garcia on the weapons station leaned over the mike to issue launch commands, on the deck of the ship, the crewman began to remove the safety locks on the Seahawk on the deck as its crew scrambled to board their helo. The helicopter spooled up as the last of the engineers removed safety pins off the torpedoes and sonobuoys. Lieutenant Michael "Hatchet" Malloy jerked a thumbs up at the deck crew and nosed his Seahawk forward.

"Hatchet is airborne Crockett, give me a bearing and I'll sniff him out for you."

"Hatchet's airborne sir." Garcia nodded. Raken tapped his stopwatch and gestured to Brown. "Torpedo impact in thirty seconds."

"Hells to pay." Brown whispered and continued to stare out at the Lincoln.

The Aircraft carrier was only vulnerable to the submarine, of which it had no known countermeasure's beyond deploying ASW helicopters like the Seahawk. But the Submarine was most vulnerable to the frigates of the fleet. And those two Euros were in for a time of their shortened lives.

Because a frigate in command of a smart captain like Brown was on the top of their list of worst nightmares.

* * *

The six torpedoes sped off on their way, with a target so big as a US supercarrier, they could hardly miss. However the echoes of turning screws churning and frothing in the water as the US fleet scrambled to engage their newest threat, began to confuse the homing torpedoes, with the reverberations sending dozens of signals to their – although the most advanced warhead brains in European service- tiny microchip brains. Four of them veered sharply off pursuing and circling in a wide five hundred meter long circle. The remaining two homed straight in for their target and delivered their warheads a hundred meters below the waterline and six meters just below the "spine" of the USS Abraham Lincoln's hull. Type 98 torpedoes were of the same warhead design as US Mark 48, designed to travel under the hull of a ship and explode, the power of the shockwave sent straight up would provide enough force to stress the spine and snap it in two, sending dozens of minor shockwaves coursing through the superstructure of the ship and causing those ones to break up too. In effect – and it had been tested – a single Type 98 was more than powerful enough to crack a US destroyer in two. But it required a significant punch to take out a Supercarrier. Two was hardly enough to break it apart but the damage done was horrendous nonetheless.

Admiral Jamesson experienced a slow motion reality for the first time in his life. He was braced against the battledisplay in the center of the CIC as the warning for incoming torpedo rang out. All the crewmen and he scrambled to secure themselves from being thrown about against the bulkheads except one, the air traffic controller was still shouting for "emergency plus five" launches of every plane on the deck, the lightnings would be the only ones who could make it though. And then the Jamesson's entire world shook. As he sailed across the CIC the thought occurred to him that "bracing" for a hit and trying to secure yourself against something really wasn't as clever as the person who created the drill thought it would be. Out of the corner of his eye and in the background, a computer display flashed as it sparked out then exploded showering the Radio officer with glass shards and hot copper wiring. A flight operator sailed perpendicular to Jamesson missing by such a small distance his nose tip brushed ever so slightly across the crewman's back, the light blue shirt that was the Navy's uniform was stained dark red. Then he felt his head connect with the steel bulkhead followed by the rest of his body as it telescoped sideways in a grotesque almost comical position. Jamesson groaned and shook his head, feeling warm droplets of blood detatch and sprinkle the flaming deck. He slipped in and out of consciousness.

He was dragged across the flaming deck. -

He was dropped. -

"_Fire in the CIC, Fire in the CIC" -_

The helicopter blades churned up the air-

A vest strapped across his back and chest, a crewman screaming to lift off-

A last image of men and women scrambling across the deck trying to douse fires -

Lasting blackness-

* * *

"Hatchet" Malloy nudged the stick and depressed the port rudder to turn the seahawk on a slow port turn. He loved this chopper, it was one of the few he still considered "true flying". So many other planes and the new Blackfoot gunship were electronically controlled with new safety measures that he felt that it didn't let a pilot get a feel for his bird the way he could connect with his seahawk. He was fifty miles out from the fleet, circling and hunting.

"Let's call it a day Hatchet." His partner "Tomahawk" Marcus said. Tomahawk was also trained as a sonarman, and the dipping sonar equipped to the seahawk allowed the helicopter a degree of subhunting ability that was only rivaled by destroyers and subs. "We're bingo in ten minutes."

"Let's try it for another ten then." Malloy wasn't going to let this sub get away. running after hitting the Lincoln? No sir, this damn euro wasn't getting away at all. Damage had been light enough so that the carrier was still afloat, but heavy enough so that it wasn't seaworthy any longer. It would take her entire battlegroup to tug her back to port in New York for repairs; almost a sixth of the fleet would be pulled to take her home. Flag was being transferred to USS Enterprise. You don't throw a sucker punch at the United States without getting at least a bloody nose in return. Malloy was going to make sure of that.

"drop the line again." Malloy ordered. Marcus sighed and lowered the towable sonobuoy as Malloy eased off on the throttle and hovered over the water tossing up froth and spray. Marcus listened for a moment then shook his head.

"Nope nothing, pull her-"

He stopped and pressed the earphones to his head.

"Got a weak signal on the line. Try to isolate him at three four five, two or three kilometers."

Malloy kicked up the throttle and fairly leapt to the point.

"Dropping a buoy." Marcus said and hit the switch to activate the sonar computer and drop a sonobuoy into the water, keeping it on passive. He listened for a moment, the passive listeners on these buoys were rather weak so Marcus dropped the line for another listen.

"Stronger signal this time. He's chugging west and slowing. Two kilometers out definitely."

Malloy turned to the mark his partner had given him and hovered once more. Another sonobuoy splashed in the water. Ten seconds passed before Marcus nodded.

"I think I've got a transient down there, nuclear plant steam noises, and he's hiding just below the thermal layer, hard to track."

"go active." Malloy ordered. "Crockett, this is Hatchet we have possible submarine contact at zero niner zero, he's just above the thermal layer, going active now."

"Copy that Hatchet, bag him for us, weapons are free."

"Be advise Crockett we are almost Bingo fuel. Advise move to our mark." He switched off the connection to the Crockett. "Get him Tomahawk." He nodded to his copilot and weapons controller.

"Hammer!" Marcus flipped the switch to bring Buoy two to active sonar, sending out rapid pings all across the water for three kilometers.

"Knell!" Marcus got a positive contact read on the computer. "Evaluate, confirmed submarine, Foxtrot class no, make that two contacts: Echo class two kilometers behind the Foxtrot!"

"Give me a bearing!"

"Go zero five zero!" Malloy responded by jamming the throttle forward to the dautum point then eased up on the throttle as Marcus activated the Magnetic Anomaly Detector gear underslung on the chopper.

Marcus checked the screen then rapidly tapped buttons…got him! "Madman! Madman! Mark away!" the Seahawk dropped a marker buoy, immediately broadcasting the subs position to the Davy Crockett via electronics and visuals, green smoke poured from the two foot diameter buoy.

"Got him, Hatchet!" Davy Crockett called. "he's all yours!"

"Roger that Crockett" Malloy responded then turned to his copilot. "Hit the Foxtrot Marcus, the Echo's only a short range diesel."

"Mark 52 in the slot. Recalibrate the azimuth and adjust elevation to twenty." Malloy ordered while he set the Mark 52 air dropped torpedo for a "snake" winding search pattern at eight hundred feet down.

Malloy confirmed his copilot's order, it was the shooter that was in charge now, not him. He nosed the Seahawk down slightly to increase his forward momentum and dropped altitude till he was about twenty meters above the water. "Speed, forty knots, take it!"

"Drop!" Marcus hit the torpedo release dropping the bright orange MK52 torpedo into the water slowed slightly by the parachute. It splashed, dove then went active searching for its prey.

"He's increased to thirty knots." Marcus commented. "Going two four zero." Malloy turned to follow the subs course in case they needed to drop another torpedo. At the rate he was flying, he would be bingo in two minutes. Time was against them, and sub commanders were usually bright, it wasn't often that a first torpedo would hit. "Fish is active and homing."

A short pause as Marcus watched the fuel gauge drop lower and lower. A Minute thirty.

"Countermeasures…" Marcus reached to arm their second and last torpedo.

"Don't bother, we've only got a minute fifteen to bag him." Malloy said with a slight tension in his voice.

"Its still homing!" Marcus said. "Its locked on, no getting away from this one, he's blowing ballast tanks!"

Did the captain think that shooting water out of his tubes and rising to periscope depth would let him get away? Not likely, the torpedo would hear the noise which was probably akin to an entire china set crashing down in the library. Whatever the captain was trying to do, it didn't matter. Fifteen seconds before Malloy's engine signaled it was time to turn back, water erupted white in a good thirty meter long oval, the noise of the underwater eruption was only drowned out by the helicopter's rotor blades and Marcus's cheer.

"Fish on target! Fish on target! Scratch one Foxtrot!"

"That's a confirmed kill Hatchet, great shooting!" Garcia on the Davy Crockett added for good measure.

"thanks Crockett, we're bingo fuel and heading back, how quickly can you get us refueled?"

"give us twenty minutes and we'll have you out there for thirty minutes."

"Better make it ten if you want to take out the Echo."

"Don't worry Hatchet, that Echo won't be getting away, we're the Davy Crockett, he just spat at us and now we're going to kick him in the balls."


	6. Undercover

Weber at Keflavik airfield felt it was worth risking a satellite and got clearance to do so. European Space Command moved one of their GPS imaging satellites to the coordinates where Weber's airmen plotted their contact. His fighters and bombers had taken horrendous losses. Nearly a third of his Tiger bombers had been killed and fourteen of them had barely limped home and would most likely be, unable to fly for the forseeable future. It was on the news that Britain was declaring an exclusion zone around her waters and airspace, there would be nothing coming from European mainland via the most direct route increasing the supply route by over six hundred kilometers and two weeks by ship.

The Satellite only managed to snap three shots before being knocked out of the sky by a roving kinetic weapon platform. What Weber saw was glorious. Two of the six super carriers were on fire, a brilliant ploy by both the European Navy and Air Force. In addition, there seemed to be quite a few of the other surface forces missing. Whether intelligence concerning enemy strengths was wrong or his pilots had scored kills, well that would have to be decided once his strike force had returned. In the mean time he busied himself with the airfield defenses. Icelanders were a notoriously peaceful people, with no real standing military beyond a local police force and a few patrol boats for fishing defense and search and rescue. While their entrance into the EF had bolstered their numbers with a small division of tanks, a much larger division of helicopters and some of the finest Enforcer Corp Kommandos Europe had to offer, there were so few local volunteers that Weber wondered if the government had voted to join the EF out of nationality or just because they could?

Europe was the strongest coalition on earth. The federation spanned the entire continent of Europe and even into Africa. Although the tribesmen were wild savages, the few cultured countries like South Africa, Morocco and Egypt added their alliegence with the European Alliance.

Russia, they were powerful enough to stand alone and they did very well. What neighbors they did not control with their mighty economy and political influence were quickly brought to heel by the treads of their tanks. But they were not Weber's problem. It was the Americans. And they were withering on the vine.

They still believed themselves to be the most powerful nation on the globe. They believed themselves the sole masters of the planet free to charge into every conflict and shape it according to their will. But they were fast losing allies. Canada had long ago declared neutrality which was quickly followed by China and Mexico. Most South American countries as well refused to enter conflict which was a wise decision indeed, since Uruguay and Paraguay were home to quite a large contingent of Enforcer Corp armored divisions. The Carribean islands had joined the US in a defiant stance against both Russia and Europe but was it really because they felt wronged by the two? Or was it because of a threat of attack from the much bigger beast? Greenland and Australia had declared exclusion zones, the latter not two hours ago. Ironically it was Brazil, a country with very little if not rather strained connections with the United States, that joined to fight with the Americans. Would their small but still dangerous battle fleet come to join the Americans in the North? Or would they direct themselves to the African countries, South Africa and Morocco?

These were questions for polititians and sometimes Weber was very happy he was only a Wing Kommandant for the European Federation.

* * *

Ivan Mikhailovich Popov was very happy to be serving the SVR. His father had been in SVR. His Grandfather had been SVR. His great Grandfather had been KGB. It was in Popov's blood to perform intelligence work. He actually had two pleasant jobs. The first and foremost, reporting to the GRU director and serving the _rodina,_ the motherland, those were both served by his work as an intelligence officer. The second was simply a male secretary at Her Majesty's Secret Service, SIS. He was in effect a spy working in a place for spies. Sometimes it made him laugh, but only after downing a few stiff shots of Vodka. The British intelligence, they were very good. They probably knew he was a spy, if the black inconspicuous looking cars that parked by his apartment every Saturday was anything to judge. They were getting sloppy, being moved out of the seat of a world power. The British had always been famous for doing everything excellently, warfare, counter terrorism, colonization, manners. Now, they sat on the sidelines and booed at everything that passed their way

Popov prided himself on being an intelligence officer first and foremost because it labeled him as intelligent. He was there to learn, to interperet, to act normally in an abnormal environment. He was fluent in seven languages including English, French, Spanish, German and even Celtic although he mostly knew how to curse in that one. He was a soldier, a man trapped deep behind what could very well be enemy lines to gather intelligence for his mother country. But unlike a soldier he was trained to take in the broader sense. So when he went out back into the backyard that day, he prepared himself.

The cars were out front again, and a discrete look through his pocket spyglass (he never could call it a telescope) had revealed maybe three cars with two people each inside all across his block, spread out. It was always supposed to be inconspicuous but for Gods sake, since when do two men ever carpool? And since when do carpoolers ever sit on a block for hours upon hours? It was discrete enough for the average passerby, but not by a person trained to evade intelligence operatives such as himself.

They were very good indeed to learn that he was receiving instructions every Saturday although they had never figured out what they were or how. Perhaps they might have found a way today? Surely not. He lit a cigarette, unfiltered and unbearably smoky for most people and took a quick puff. The azalea patch was coming in nicely. He'd gardened it to perfection, letting it grow out and expand to fill this little corner of his backyard with sweet smells and colors.

And to hide the small satellite transmitter he kept buried in its roots. He dug the thing up quickly, shaking the soil from it so as to not interrupt the satellite feed. Russia ironically did not have the best satellite systems in the world, and especially since the Euros and their satellite warfare operations such a task might have appeared futile and useless. Popov however was smarter than this and so were his comrades back at SVR headquarters.

A new type of antanae he attatched to the back of the thing, this would piggyback feed onto a public cell used for cell phones. It would then be relayed upward into space and onto one of the British satellites to be transferred to Russia. And it would look no different to the eyes of a vigilant programmer than a person making a long distance call to a Russian relative or vice versa. Upon investigation however, they would find line upon line of brutal ironclad firewalls that would take possibly weeks to crack. In other words, plenty of time for Popov to pack his bags and vanish. He wished he could be serving the Rodina some other way, a well placed spy in the American Congress or Europe's Parliament would be very useful indeed but he was not needed there. He was needed here, in the fiercely independent United Kingdom. He was unsure as to what importance his duty was here until he received the Satellite transmission. He flipped the local jammer on. He had hid it in this neighborhood sure but it was actually four houses down, the tiny boxlike device was disguised as his neighbors sprinkler control system and would muddle whatever tracking equipment the SIS officers had in their cars or on them. The SIS would not be tracking the jamming to his house that's for sure and that gave him a slight edge as the Satellite transmitter dumped data onto his flash drive. How funny, for all technology's advancement over the years, hard storage devices like discs or drives were still inseperable from modern equipment. He made sure the device was safely removed then buried the transmitter back in. he would leave the jammer on for the rest of the weekend, more to fool the SIS and throw them off his trail. Such was the game of Cat and Mouse in the underworld of intelligence operations. He would take the rest of the weekend to relax. He was in the United Kingdom, and most did not work on weekends. He would read his orders at his desk in the SIS like any normal secretary would.


	7. Sea Air and Land

The Emerald Isle had some of the lushest green hills in the entire world. It seemed that even though the country was modernizing in every aspect, it still managed to retain its medieval, spiritual countryside. Rolling blankets of green covered the island as far as Popov could see. The landscape was dotted with trees, shrubs all of the same shade of brilliant emerald. It seemed to have jumped straight out of a fairytale and been painted into the land. It seemed almost magical.

"It is a beautiful place Comrade." He said to the man next to him.

"It is" Rodney McGreggor responded. "A place worth fighting for. Please if we may discuss our business down by the lake, I'm sure you would be able to see more of my country."

And burble any sort of listening device that might be used on them. The babbling brook that they stood in should block any bug or long range acoustic device.

"Do you agree?" Popov asked.

"How can I be so sure that our interests are in synch laddie?" McGreggor was a cautious man, he was wanted for five murders of British Special Air Service and SIS operatives alone and was suspected to be a leader of an IRA cell. That suspicion was correct. "it is odd that you don't have us fighting the brits in the overall conflict."

It was rather stupid that the IRA still existed in Popov's opinion. Ireland was so economically dependent on the United Kingdom that it was impossible for the two to become truly separate, but he would endure with the man. "Would you rather be working for the socialist pigs of Europe when they roll over Her Majesty's finest?"

McGreggor chuckled. "Her Majesty never had the finest, Andreyev." He called Popov by his cover name, or to his knowledge his real name. "My boys are the finest."

"Then you will get the job done?"

"A slight change in the goods." McGreggor said. "Two million plus shoulder mounted Surface to Air missiles."

"I thought you said you would be able to supply yourself?" Popov laughed.

"We all work for money, Andreyev, an extra half million pounds is not much more than the original price. And we need to be able to shoot our way out when things get dicey. We're soldiers, not martyrs."

"I can transfer the money by midnight tonight." Popov nodded. "Missiles should come in three days, two if we're lucky, the rest is already on the way."

"Then we have a deal." The Irishman held his left hand out for shaking while the right pulled a bottle out of his trenchcoat. Ah, Irish traditions. Alcohol was used as much here as it was in Russia. Almost as strong too.

They shook hands and swigged to the war ahead of them.

* * *

They came as planned. Two million Irish pounds were transferred from an anonymous Swiss account and were just as quickly laundered and invested wisely into successful Irish businesses under the IRA's procterate. The rest came by truck. F2000 assault rifles- cut downs of the European army variant the commando version- matte black Enforcer Kommando headgear and armor with working heads up display and fluorine riot shields, H&K MP12 submachine guns, and all necessary attatchments to make the wearer's even more deadly. McGregor's people had already planned ahead of time. This would be the most ambitious strike by the IRA yet and there would be no slip ups. It was a morally win win situation for them. To fight the Euros, they'd be killing Brits.

* * *

The damage to the fleet would not be repeated, Jammesson vowed silently. "honest Abe" was out of commission, with two great rents along its spine it could barely make eight knots, not fast enough for fighters to lift off. They said two type 97 torpedoes had detonated directly under it. Any other ship and that would have been a kill shot, but USS Abraham Lincoln, CC-177 was made of much tougher stuff. CC-198 USS George Bush was crippled as well but got off better. Two missiles struck its fore crumpling the flightdeck slightly and destroying the forward counterbattery, but it was still serviceable. Lightnings who had no need of such a long flight deck would be able to lift off. Bush and its escorts would be pulled off the Task Force and directed back to New York to cover Abraham Lincoln's retreat.

Jamesson however was not going to be put down so easily. He'd quickly transferred flag to the USS John F. Kennedy, CC-174 and her captain James Patts had a reputation for being sharp innovative and quick. Admiral Jamesson had received a head concussion from his collision with the steel bulkhead, and several bruises that would be there for the better part of two weeks, but he was still serviceable. Almost miraculously "without a scratch". The CIC on Lincoln had lost six brave sailors when the torpedoes hit. Dozens of others died from around the ship.

That wasn't going to be repeated again. The Atlantic Task Force would chug east at eight knots, then sprint north at twenty, he hoped to fool European satellite imaging and give his fleet cover for a day or two more. At the same time, he reorganized the formation, the fleet would be spread out to cover a much larger area, the carriers and cruisers were, of course, still at the center of the formation and in a ring around them the merchantmen and Joint Strike Force assault carriers with frigates and destroyers making up the final ring. Now, it would be slightly easier to find them but it would take an extraordinarily good boomer captain to navigate his boat close enough to get a shot off at the carriers again.

That was one of the problems with war, extraordinary things happened. There was no reassurance, it was all down to luck and who screws up first.

Jamesson wouldn't make a mistake again.

USS Chicago was up to its neck in water. That wasn't good, the water was shallow and the low tide didn't help. Toland couldn't dive for more than a hundred feet, too shallow to maneuver, he was essentially a sitting duck.

But the Euros wouldn't believe a Los Angeles Class nuclear attack sub would dare navigate such shallow waters off the coast of Iceland. More to the point, they didn't have any defense in such shallow waters.

It was a pity for them.

"All stop." He ordered and the ship came to a halt save for the quiet beep of one of the consoles.

"Reevaluate bearing Sonar"

Kennedy listened to the waves for a moment, he removed the filter on his computer to listen to the sound of crashing water on the fjords, it was like listening to cymbals clash.

"Conn, bearing on shorelines are three three zero and zero three two." Shoreline? They were in the middle of a sound that poured into the sea, surrounded by sheer cliffs made of limestone or whatever rocks there were on Iceland. A hundred miles from Keflavik airport.

"EWO raise the ELM." Roland said "Up scope."

Roland saw the grey cliffs of Iceland for the first time in his life. There wasn't a soul in sight, save for flocks of puffins that nested on the cliffs and a fishing trawler chugging peacefully out to sea for its first catch of the day. It was 0300, when sleeping human reaction times were calculated to be at its worst.

"give me two sweeps, Illuminate." He ordered while still peering through the scope. He aimed it at the shore and clicked the button to fire his infared laser rangefinder. It was maybe two kilometers out from the nearest point at bearing…three two seven."

"Conn, Radar." The Electronics Warfare Officer sounded from his computer, "one four propellered craft at six thousand feet."

He was rather low, but not low enough to be sub hunting. Besides, they were in shallow waters, who would expect this? Roland withheld the urge to mop his brow nonetheless. This was ridiculous, they didn't even know If it was a sub hunter. Perhaps a civilian aircraft from Greenland? Who knew?

Exactly.

"Down scope." Toland snapped the bars up. "XO you have the Conn."

"aye sir." Lieutenant Nolan nodded. Toland stalked down into the torpedo rooms to speak with the dozen individuals assembled there. When he arrived he found them loading two of the forward tubes. One of the torpedoes clanged not loudly but loud enough to invite a curse from one of the men to be more careful. He immediately felt awkward as if he was intruding on a very exclusive club. These men weren't the type he usually dealt with in operations. He'd only exercised with these men once.

"Gentlemen". Toland cleared his throat.

"Sir." They nodded and casually saluted in reply, none of that sharp barked "Sir!" that was so common from other navymen, but they weren't just "other" navymen.

"You all know how imperative Iceland is." He began nervously, he felt he was rather good at speechmaking, hell he was part of the Anapolis Speech and Debate team but these fellows made him nervous beyond all belief. He fingered his collar slightly. "I won't shoot you some glory line because I know you'll just end up laughing at me when I'm out of earshot." Time for a joke? "And believe me my ship can hear for quite a long ways." One of the men chuckled, the others remained impassive yet attentative. "but I will say this. You are the tip of the spear of this operation, and while you might not be the most important part, without you all we will never take this island. I know this won't be easy." He finished awkwardly.

"they don't call us for the easy jobs." A man with his head shaven shrugged. Toland took that as a cue for _him_ to be dismissed. He saluted one last time and received the casual response and about faced and turned.

"He's an awkward customer." Sergeant Joseph Sanchez shrugged and tugged on his webbing to secure it one last time.

"He's a good captain." Lieutenant John Dean nodded and climbed into the torpedo tube. "Let's move SEALs."

* * *

Two shots were fired from Chicago at no targets. Two torpedo tube doors were opened but no pressurized air jetted out of the tubes to launch the torpedoes. The SEAL teams started the screws themselves, six men for each "torpedo", four would ride inside and two would hang on bars along the edges. They wore matte black wetsuits and fins, that helped keep them warm in the frigid morning waters. Each man had his own individual underwater rebreather which converted the water into oxygen and created no surface bubbles and a heavy kitbag slung over their shoulders.

Two torpedoes raced out from the Chicago and toward the cliffs of Iceland. They stopped a hundred meters from the cliffs and the SEALs scuttled them and surfaced after half an hour. 0330.

It was a two hundred meter high cliff, quite a climb. Lieutenant Dean ordered the fins to be removed quickly and stowed in their bags and ordered the grappling hooks up. Two men fired rapelling lines upward and onto the edge of the cliff, a rope ladder snaking down behind it. It was a long climb but all the men made it up and quickly doffed their rebreathers which were becoming heavy and their wetsuits which were still soaking wet and would invite a chillfactor on the already cold island. The puffins nearby squawked in alarm. 0400.

They assembled on the rocks. Twelve armed individuals in green and grey flecked digital pattern camoflauge to hide them from overhead satellites and to blend in on the ground. SEAL modified rifles were quickly assembled and checked. Two gun cameras were out of commission unable to resist both frigid temperatures and deep underwater pressure. Four M203 grenade launchers were not functioning, they soaked far too much salt water to be serviceable. Luckily their AT-8 LAWs wire guided missiles were still serviceable, as well as their GPS and infared laser binoculars. The mission was still on without so many hitches.

Lieutenant Dean snapped his MR-C together and checked the gun camera mount one last time. He flipped down the miniscreen over his left eye to make sure the system was functional, then shook everything again to make sure it was completely dry. He checked his team, although each man was carrying different weapons (personal to each of their own preferences and modified in dozens of different microscopic ways) they were all dressed the same. The camouflage BDUs and facepaint, boonie hats, night vision goggles ,water canteens and dry rations, ammunition clips, grenades- his men were experts, some even went as far as to call them better than Ghosts.

Dean certainly thought so.

"Lets go." He nodded "Trip, cover our tracks."


	8. The wool over their eyes

Two inconspicuous matte black vans pulled up alongside the chain link fence. Individuals exited their vehicles quickly and broke out lock cutters. One activated his laptop and hit a key to send out a signal to the radio transmitter in one of the vans and converted the radio wave into an electromagnetic wave which locked onto the nearest cell node and infiltrated the system slipping in as quickly and quietely as a mouse. In less than a second the signal hopped out of the cell node (which was connected to a wireless internet receiver) and into the webways where it scoured the local networks and punched through the firewall guarding the Liverpool naval base. The signal piggybacked onto the alarm and motion sensors and sent a constant tone of security along the line effectively disabling it from doing its purpose. The hacker gave the others a thumbs up. They were inside twenty seconds later.

They moved silent and swift in the morning twilight. Their already black suits were covered in ash to dull its armored glint. Their helmet heads up displays were disabled, the blinking lights and colors proved too confusing to the men. Plus, they betrayed a slight noise and light, none of which would be good on a mission as important as this. The dockyards were silent, twenty of Her Majesty's ships were moored and defenseless, only a large handful of dock guards and navy personal were up and about at this witching hour.

There were twenty of them, F200 assault rifles-cut down commando variants- were at the ready, they moved as quietely and as efficiently –fluid, silent, quick, deadly- as any special forces team. With quick gestures, the leader split his group into four teams and they all disappeared into the twilight.

The sound of the tide coming in only muffled the chatter of gunfire slightly. One of the dock guards fell.

Then another.

Two more went to check out the noise. One was dropped just outside the HMS Illustrious. The other ducked back inside to shield himself from the storm of incoming fire and alerted the captain. It took two minutes for him to be aroused and another minute for battlestations to be sounded to what crew was actually on the ship. The speakers were activated and the signal lights switched on bathing the dock in light. The entire naval base came to life in five minutes, on sight marines streamed out of the dormitories at the ready-drowsy but ready.

There was so much confusion, the Royal Marine officers demanded orders and information from superiors who barely knew the situation themselves and in return ordered the Marines to hold their positions until the "official threat had been evaluated."

The twenty "Europeans" boarded the frigate HMS Lancelot and killed the on deck crewmen and commandeered the boat. Inexperienced hands guided it all the way to the mouth of the harbor, chased by several destroyers which desperately tried to sink it then and there; the captains felt that they were trying to escape with it.

The commandos got to the mouth of the well defended harbor where Royal Marines prepared to board the ship and VTOL aircraft vectored in with Special Air Service commandos eagerly waiting in their hulls. It was at the very mouth of the harbor when the Lancelot abruptly made a hard right, turning ninety degrees and slamming into the right side of the mouth. The short crump of an explosion on the aft end of the ship announced the commandos scuttling her engines and letting the ship sink. A missile was fired at one of the aircraft forcing it to veer sharply to the right and drop altitude while firing off its chaff, successfully diverting the Surface to Air missile. Marines saw and fired on twenty dark shapes that leapt into the water-not before an SAS sniper made a clean shot through the head, punching through the back end of the oxygen tank in the process so that the body was clearly marked. The other nineteen made a clean getaway, quickly going deeper than searchlights could spot, whether they made it across the channel back to homeland Europe or were swept away by the strong current that night, Her Majesty's armed forces never learned.

What they did learn was from the body of the recovered man and the underwater remains of HMS Lancelot. Lancelot was one of the larger destroyers of Her Majesty's fleet, spanning a full four hundred meters long and displacing three hundred tons on a low tide she was big enough to block off the port of Liverpool and restrict traffic in the harbor for the next week as salvage teams attempted to clear it. They recovered the bodies of the fourteen brave crewmen including the forty year old Captain Robert Lincoln and a European SA-9 surface to Air missile launcher. The man they recovered was wearing European "enforcer" gear, complete with heads up display, modified F200 assault rifle, and holographic dogtag. They also found the man was wearing a French Jade Cross, a medal of honor given to French trained paratroopers who showed courage under fire. The man's face had been blown apart by the sniper's .50 caliber hollow point splinter round but all the evidence pointed to a french man.

That night Parliament held an emergency session and soon after Prime Minister Blake ordered the deportment of European citizens and personel, and politely but firmly asked Ireland to seize European satellite Uplink sites in their country, Britain had fiercely vetoed all attempts for Europe to put their foot on _their_ island. The Irish Federal Army complied efficiently and by six o'clock Dublin time all three European Uplink centers were under Irish control.

Blake gave a rousing speech that morning for the cameras and showed the overwhelming evidence that Europe meant to open hostilities with them, starting with a constant probe along the exclusion zones, "extreme diplomatic pressure to set Uplink sites and forward bases on British Soil", and now this "damnable act of treason of trust" by scuttling the Lancelot and blocking off the port of Liverpool was too much.

"Europe has long felt the United Kingdom and her sister Island in Ireland to be weak and stupidly nonconforming, but we will show the "mainland" that by no means will the free peoples of these islands bow and conform to such tyranny and injustice of which we have offered no provocations." Blake spoke and was greeted by loud rousing applause no doubt staged by the press. Or maybe it wasn't? Popov would never find out. "I have asked the members of Parliament and they have agreed to declare a state of War against the united forces of Europe." More cheers but they were quickly silenced by Blake's wave of a hand. "I have also requested that the United States of America come to our aide militarily and economically." He let polite applause interrupt that statement. "by no means am I or any other member of parliament allowing the Americans to establish their foothold on our island as well, and at five thirty two this morning we have come to a standing agreement." Popov turned the volume up on his laptop where he was pirating the cable feed from a neighbor a few blocks down.

"The Americans will not deploy armed forces on this island any time in the future nor will they be given access to Uplink sites on the island. Because the Americans have respected these terms, The United Kingdom's armed forces are now, at this time performing Joint operations with American Surface and subsurface Naval Forces and we are expanding our exclusion zones to include the coasts of Spain, Denmark, Sweden and Norway and any air assets in those areas as well. These are total air and sea exclusion zones, and with a heavy heart I have ordered unrestricted warfare in these areas." The flash of cameras as he paused and let the reality of that sink in. "If the Europeans do not agree to the American's terms Her Majesty's Armed Forces will participate in aggressive and lethal action against mainland Europe and her forces for the for seeable future. Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not gladly enter this war but when we are thrust into hell, we must step barefoot onto the brimstone and match the Devil's eye. We will not shirk, we will not burn, we will not fall, and we will be victorious." Blake bowed to the camera's and the press rose in a wild frenzy for questions. Popov switched the feed off.

"Yes you see that?" he typed on his laptop computer, he had been streaming it via a deaddrop instant messaging site through an Israeli network. Israel's internet networks were tough to crack, even in the private industry a few firewalls rivaled what Popov had heard to be the security protocols on Russia's own Armed Forces Network.

"I see that." His superior "Whisper" responded quickly and in Israeli. They were posing as Israeli foreigners on the networking site, and no use arousing suspicion, Israel had a nasty habit of putting its proverbially big nose into too many things that didn't concern them.

"Is that it?" Popov asked

"It is." Whisper replied. "I will contact you later. Another million for our good friend."

"Thank you friend."

"Goodbye."

"goodbye."

McGregor had done well, nineteen of his men had made it back he had heard, picked up by an Irish fishing boat loyal to the IRA and metaphorically shoved under a rug so that the Brits would have no reason to suspect IRA activity. Popov didn't fully understand why his orders had been to start war between the Euros and Britain until he looked at it from a Russian's point of view.

Europe had blamed Russia for the start of the war and the full weight of its land forces had been thrown at the Motherland. The Euros were slowly losing but slowly was one of those terms not suitable for warfare in this day and age when everything could be publicized and information was unrestricted no matter how many snoopers there were. If the United States were able to win leverage over Europe's Navy, it could very well turn the tide as Europe redirected its ground forces to defend its western border to repel invaders. They would be forced to fight a two front war and Britain could provide that leverage for the United States.

It all fell into place now, Britain was by no means a very large weight, it was a small island and although its proud military tradition for excellence was not to be underestimated, they simply lacked the resources to support the United States in a prolonged war against not one, but two large militaries.

Russia would surely win this conflict if the war was long.

And it would be, it surely would be.


	9. Messaging

"Doghouse, this is Greyhound, Doghouse do you copy?" Lieutenant Dean tried one more time.

No answer.

"Shit…" he cursed and shut off the satellite radio. There were too many unconfirmed variables on this mission, could the satellite link be malfunctioning? Could it be jammed? Could the rocks around them be blocking it? It was such a dicey mission, for christ's sake the _sun_ didn't even set around here, just hovered by the horizon for three hours before lifting back up overhead to taunt the SEALs. How in the world did the Icelanders cope?

The only good thing so far was that they hadn't been detected, and the rocky outcrop they had been laying on for the past two hours provided both excellent cover and an excellent view of Keflavik airport and the seaport. There were six SEALs on Dean's team, the other six lead by Lieutenant Chavez were still hoofing it toward the secondary objective at Rejavik where they would observe and report just like Dean. It was boring. It was exciting. It was like taking notes on a movie, they counted cars, they counted tanks, they counted planes and timed the lifts. They noted the positions of SAMs and where the local Enforcer unit was based, they plotted the gas stations, the schools, the hospitals, the power plants, the radar sites-

It was grueling.

They were supposed to report in on the hour, every even hour. It was fucking 0200 zulu and Doghouse, their check in, hadn't been able to receive them yet. He tried raising the other team.

"Beagle, go ahead." Lieutenant Domingo "Ding" Chavez responded.

"Ding you having trouble raising Doghouse?"

"Little bit. I think it's the rocks 'mano." Chavez said in his Los Angeles _chicano_ drawl, he spoke as if he swaggered with every step. Dean knew that Chavez was one of the best men SEAL's had to offer, going through Ranger HALO school, and even doing stick time in a Marine Corp Blackhawk. The way he spoke, if it could be called "swaggering" was well deserved.

"Copy that. Look I'm going to try to raise them again but we should give each other our reports just in case one of us can't make it."

Ding reported nothing unusual beyond the fact that the sun didn't set. No enemy contacts because they were trying to swing around the main roads and the direct path they found was across flat land, not good if one was trying to be stealthy.

"We should get to the objective in another two hours." Chavez finished. "Beagle out."

"Doghouse, this is Greyhoud." Dean tried one last time. "Doghouse do you copy…"

There was a pause and Dean almost slammed the radio shut but then static managed to push through and a garbled voice tried to raise them, Dean focused and trained the miniscule satellite dish in different ways until the voice came clear.

"Sender on this network Identify" a heavily accented voice said, Dean couldn't place where. "Sierra Echo" the voice challenged.

" Alpha Lima." Dean finished the code phrase and breathed a sigh of relief "Doghouse you're late."

"Apologies Greyhound, we've been trying to raise Beagle but we can't seem to get to them."

"They just reported in Doghouse, they're fine." Dean rattled off first his, then Beagle's reports.

"Doing good Greyhound, keep it up. By the way how are you feeling?" It was a very benign and odd question, Dean was so drowsy he almost forgot that it was a code phrase.

"Lousy, things are absolutely fucking lousy." He responded. If things were going "good" Doghouse was supposed to identify them as captured and forced to perform misinformation operations. If they were the opposite, their reports were true. As if SEALs would ever allow themselves to be captured, Dean silently scoffed.

"Good to hear that Greyhound. Out." The line shut.

* * *

Back in Maine, "Doghouse" or, the person acting as the radioman for "Doghouse" ran up his report and emailed it to his CIA director where it was encrypted and decrypted and made it all the way to NAVSURFCOM and was shot through the iridium network (encrypted and decrypted again) to Admiral Jammesson on the USS John F. Kennedy.

The hot printer spat out the report and the electronics officer handed it to Jamesson in the CIC.

It had been a grueling three days, the Europeans were behaving beautifully and were giving Jamesson a real run for his money. Tiger strike bombers from Iceland would come in groups of up to forty at a time and launch their missiles from outside the radar detection umbrella. It wasn't sure how the Euros were doing this even with Jamesson's rapid changes of course to keep the euros from predicting where they were. Most likely, there was a submarine tracking them but if he was, Jamesson's frigates would have no problem detecting them because they were so spread out.

Whatever the case, assaults usually occurred like this: First they'd detect the radars of a far off sentry. Fighters would scramble. Vampires would be detected. And then that would be that. Maybe if they were lucky the CAP fighters would be able to smack down one or two Tigers or Sentries but it wasn't often enough. Submarine attacks would periodically appear (Latest intelligence counted there to be maybe _seventy six_ boomers operating in Atlantic waters, Jamesson could only deploy thirty) but were easily countered by the United State's fantastic ASW groups.

But they were exhausted. A trip to Iceland should only have lasted them six days at most. At this rate it would be stretched to two full weeks to _reach_ the damn island. And ammunition was running lower and lower with every assault the task group beat back. And those Euros could reinforce at will, airlifting ammunition and fuel to Iceland, but that was why Beagle and Greyhound were there. He needed to know what the threats were.

Doghouse's report was very short and concise, but coded in morse so it took a while for Jamesson to translate it.

ESTIMATED ICELAND DEFENSES AT KEFLAVIK VIA GREYHOUND AS OF 0200 ZULU X FORTY TWO PLUS GAMMA TWELVE BOMBERS X TWENTY PLUS HAILSTORM INTERCEPTORS X TWELVE PLUS SIERRA ALPHA ALPHA BRAVO SEVENTY ONE AWACS AND TANKER CRAFT X THIRTY PLUS EUROFIGHTER TYPHOONS OF VARYING ROLES X ENFORCER BATTLE GROUP IN TWO REGIMENT PLUS STRENGTH.

Jamesson took that in for a moment. Keflavik's airfield and seaport was the one he wanted most, with the port intact he'd be able to land his JSF troops without any sort of beach landings and with the base those troops would get much needed air support from assets that otherwise might have come from Jamesson's arsenal. He wanted as little spent here as necessary he still did, after all have Europe to invade.

But with more than forty two long range bombers, with fighter cover and tanker support and the ability to replenish at will, the logistics were against him and the USN. The task seemed daunting, he had to deal with not only Iceland but with the European Navy as well? Iceland would be aided by Europe, who could aid the Task Force?

His answer came to him by hand. The hot printer spat another sheet of paper out and the electronics officer once again handed him a sheet that changed his entire day. Jamesson smiled.

* * *

They'd been stalking their prey for over eight hours, it was grueling.

"That captain is beautiful." The Lieutenant Nolan whispered. The Icelandic Pockett Carrier could only carry six fighters and two helos, six aging harriers and two old Pave Low helictopters. It was a threat Captain Toland and the Chicago thought they could eliminate, pop and go. They'd been ordered in at noon to attack the Icelandic fleet and when Toland shot off a message for clarification as to which target he should prioritize, the answer came back tart and to the point.

GO FOR THE HEAVIES

Easier said than done. For eight hours Toland had been putting Chicago and her crew through a grueling series of sprints and slows, ups and downs handling the Chicano sub like a sports car. He'd gotten unlucky on his approach as he closed to the outer range of the picket, one of the Seahawks made a MAD pass on him and dropped a sonobuoy forcing Toland to disengage and reaquire.

But now the carrier had called in the cavalry, there were two Dragoon class two hundred meter long frigates designed for anti submarine operations and their helicopter compliments worked very well when they were directed by the carrier's forward air controller.

Toland had driven his boat around in a circle testing the picket lines to look for a break in the fence.

He found one just ten minutes ago.

The currents carried one of the sonobuoy's out of alignment, and the active sonar, although good for about six miles, drifted off of its position far enough for Toland to make a quick sprint under the thermal layer to hide the noise and get inside the defense.

It all came down to this now. The seas overhead were a little rough, Toland would have to be using his Passive Sonar with heavy filters if he was going to acquire anything on the surface and that would need a lot of luck to work. Then he'd engage with torpedos, two Mark 48s would be enough to sink the ship. He could shoot harpoons of course, but that would mean rising to periscope depth and risking a radar sweep with his own ELM and being detected; _then_ he might lose control when he fired his missiles because of the sudden buoyancy change and the rough seas above-the sea was always trying to kill you if you didn't pay her the proper respect.

"Transients" Kennedy whispered in the Sonar station. Good man, he'd been up almost every hour of the past two days and was functioning just as efficiently as he was when he started. "Can't identify yet."

"Take your time sonar." Toland walked over to the station and eyed the console. With the filters in place the screen was uncharacteristically flatlined save for the odd flutter on the G band acoustic. Toland asked about it.

"Might be nothing sir." Kennedy yawned "excuse me. But it could be a ship on station keeping."

"Do you think you can hear better if I get a little closer for you?" Toland gave Kennedy a hearty pat on the back to encourage him and to keep him awake.

"You bet."

"XO take her forward, ahead one third down five on the planes." That would put him under the layer a little bit deeper making it harder for them to be heard. Back on the Conn, Toland heard Nolan give the orders and the ship vibrated slightly as it chugged forward at eight knots. Toland and Kennedy's eyes never left the screen the whole time. Ten minutes passed.

"there." Kennedy jabbed a finger at another set of fluctuations, this one on the deeper D band, Kennedy tinged it purple and listened a little bit, then removed a filter so the D band fluctuated more. Kennedy's eyes rolled up and to the right, then smiled and yawned.

"That's him." He pointed at the D band flux. "That's the carrier's anchor against the bottom, its deep and clinking not like the screw sounds here."

"Good man Sonar." Toland patted his shoulders. "Go get yourself some sleep, we got it from here."

"Just a moment sir." Kennedy shook his head and punched keys on the computer to link it with the fire control computer at the fore end of the ship. "Got bearings, Sierra one is the carrier and is at Zero nine eight and is station keeping. Sierra two I think is a frigate and is at one zero two and is station keeping. Range to sierra one is…three kilometers, sierra two is at…" Kennedy collapsed forward his head resting against the computer screen.

"Rotate Sonar." Toland spoke into the ship intercom and a in a few moments Kennedy was lead off to his bunk and replaced by a fresh and cheerful sailor named Petty Officer Williams. It took a moment for Williams to orient himself then finished Kennedy's report.

Satisfied that he could picture his approach now, Toland went into the Action center where he gave his orders to go in.


	10. Storm shots

AN: for those of you that have been patient enough to wade through this, yes I seriously realize that this can be taxing on your patience and that I am quite infuriatingly unclear sometimes about how submarine warfare actually works. unfortunately if i were to delve into that this would easliy be three thousand words longer and i feel that you seriously dont want to read THAT. if you want a better written version of sub warfare, i suggest The Hunt for Red October.

* * *

"XO I'll take the Conn." Toland said and Nolan stepped aside and went aft to get himself some coffee. The Conn had been in the red light for the past eight hours and Toland could never shake the feeling of how spooky it was when the ship was on battle stations. "All ahead one third, right full rudder make your bearing zero nine zero, ten degree rise on the planes." USS Chicago slowly made a ninety degree right turn.

"Sonar, Conn, Reevaluate range to targets."

"Sierra one is now at two point three klicks, Sierra two still unconfirmed sir."

This was pure submarine warfare. Silently slipping in, killing the prize ship of the fleet then slipping out like a boogey man. He would wait till his targets were less than a thousand meters away before shooting, the rough waters would throw off his aim a little bit and he wanted a sure kill. Tolands orders reflected the calm cold mood of the bridge, they were quiet and easy.

"Sound off the range, Sonar. Fire control I want full safeties on the torpedoes and updated firing solutions by the minute."

"Range two klicks."

"Firing solution."

"Don't flood the tubes yet." Toland said "Ease out on the planes" he ordered as he checked the planesmen's leveler. Chicago was now above the thermal layer where the cold water wouldn't interfere with the torpedoes running.

"One kilometer."

"all stop."

"Ship answering all stop."

"Reevaluate firing solution and make ready."

"Firing solution on Sierra two, Torpedoes loaded in one and two, Harpoons in three and four, flooding one and two and opening the doors-"

"Transients, Transients!" Sonar shouted suddenly "Torpedoes in the water crossing starboard to port bearings three one zero. Counting two, no, four fish in the water repeat four fish in the water and going fast-Jesus somebody's shooting the Euros!"

Toland wasted no time. "All ahead flank, down twenty on the planes new course bearing one eight zero left full rudder!" he barked and the Chicago suddenly went alive with noise as she rapidly turned to get clear from the Euros-

"Hit! That's a hit! Torpedoes were on target who the hell is out there Skipper?" Sonar shouted, Toland ignored him and concentrated on trying to get his ship away and not raging in his own conn.

Dammit he'd done everything perfect, he'd slipped through the net, got inside the formation, lined up the shot and then someone _else_ had gotten there before and stolen the kill. It wasn't fair, where was _he_ eight hours ago at the start of the engagement? He'd personally punch every USN commander just to find out who was captaining that boat.

"lots of screw noises now captain! Confirmed dragoon type sea screw bearing zero eight six and-

"All rise on the planes! Periscope depth!" Toland snapped and raised the periscope and Radar mast.

He turned the scope, the sky was a cloudy grey and off in the distance he could see the two frigates charging away to the left of a smoking ruin that had to be the carrier.

"Energize and give me a sweep!" he said and transferred the radar information into the fire control center. "Fire control reload with harpoons and make ready to fire!"

"Firing solution!" the officer shouted with a tone in his voice that was meant to remind Toland that the ship could lose buoyancy and control dangerously fast.

"Match radar generated bearings and _shoot_!"

"Fire sequence!" the roar of harpoon missiles leaving the tube and shooting into the water, rising then firing afterburners to roar into the sky filled the hull of the sub just over the noise of rumbling machinery as Chicago suddenly gained a whole bunch more buoyancy and began rolling dangerously from side to side in the rough storm waters. Toland stumbled slightly and snapped up the periscope as he tried to find his voice for orders. They began listing to starboard-

"Blow the starboard ballast tanks, all stop!"

"engines answering all stop!" the engineering officer shouted just over the sound of the violent decompression of all the starboard ballast tanks to keep the sub from capsizing. Chicago righted, then was pushed to port-

"Blow portside tanks, one and two!"

Two of the portside tanks blew out their air to keep Chicago level-

"All ahead flank," Toland barked "down full on the planes make your depth eight hundred!"

USS Chicago began its dive downward disappearing under the thermal layer.

"how's the bubble?" he asked the planesmen and took a look at the leveler.

"Permission to empty the number three port side ballast tank by one sixth." An ensign said as he mopped sweat from his brow. That would leave reserve air supplies dangerously low, they'd have to refill in the next two hours or they wouldn't have oxygen.

"do it." Toland ordered and the ensign flipped a switch and activated a timer. Fifteen seconds later he flipped the switch back down.

"leveling out sir." He breathed, Toland patted him in the shoulder and went back to the Conn.

"slow to one third, and open the torpedo doors."

"Aye sir, ship responding all ahead one third." It was only when the ship became quiet again did Toland allow himself to breathe.

"Quite a maneuver sir." Nolan said appearing from nowhere a mug of coffee in his hands and a telltale spill as to what happened to him during the rapid series of maneuvers.

"Someone ruined our approach and I had to break contact." Toland accepted the mug gratefully and drank, letting the caffeine sear down his throat and fuel the rage he felt.

He'd done _everything_ right and some lousy motherfucker had ruined his approach and _then_ he got mad and put his ship in danger by firing two harpoons in risky waters. He couldn't let that happen again. The fatigue was getting to him.

"I'll take the Conn sir." Nolan said and cocked a head to his quarters. Nolan was an extraordinary first mate, always putting the captain and crew before himself. Toland only nodded wearily in reply and stalked off to his quarters where he slept without briefing Nolan about their oxygen problem. Nolan could handle it.

* * *

"You see the powerplant Greyhound?"

Dean gestured rapidly for the binoculars, Corporal Dunns tossed him the heavy set from his pack.

"Yeah I see it Doghouse, want us to go in and shut it off?"

"Just keep your eyes on it Doghouse and keep your heads down, we're rolling in the strike packages in thirty minutes Zulu. Is there anything and I mean _anything_ we need to know?"

Dean pulled out his map, he was so happy that they still printed some of this crap in paper, these things didn't break when they were dunked in water, just got wet and sticky for a little while but here in the arctic sun they dried fast. He unfolded it and noted all the red circles he had marked around Keflavik.

"Yeah, they got SAMs all over this area, one on each surrounding hill and I think a mobile radar site in addition to the bunkered one but I can't see that right now."

"Any enemy activity that we need to know?"

"No they're sticking to their normal routine foot patrols, cheetah helos, the odd disgruntled civvie, tanks haven't made a sound."

"Good report Greyhound, keep us posted and it'd be nice to know when some of those air assets lift off-"

"there they go right now Doghouse, I'm counting four pairs of contrails overhead, they're too high to see but they look like fighters, might be the new Hailstorm."

"Good to know Greyhound, we'll be checking up on Beagle now. Doghouse Out."

Dean shut off the transmitter and noted the battery was running a little low, the joys of not having some of this stuff tested with seawater came at a price.

"Fuckin A sir." Dunn shuddered in the cold, his coat had been ripped on the way up and now he was paying for it. Dean shucked his own and slid it over.

"0800, breakfast time." Sergeant Sanchez noted and opened up his MRE.

"What would you rather have, chef's special: rice without fish, rice without beef or rice without pork?"

"Well if you have some peaches I'll trade you for my peanut butter and crackers." PFC Wong said as he opened his own MRE. Sanchez looked inside his. "Deal." And tossed him the bag.

"Chow up, we rock and roll at 0830, air support is incoming." Dean ordered and contently crunched on one of the candy bars he had thoughtfully packed in a waterproof bag.

* * *

About two hundred miles away, Four B1 Lancer Bombers checked in at forty thousand feet, two were set to attack ground targets and were loaded with JDAM laser guided munitions, the other two had been outfitted with AIM-10 Quarrel Radar guided missiles and buddy fuel tanks able to transfer fuel to other planes. They were accompanied by four Air National Guard Raptors from the New York Attack squadrons, and an E-7 Eagle Eye AWACS, part of the Maine Attack Squadron.

"Buns" Macdonald checked her systems and eased off slightly on her forward thrust detatching herself from the buddy store and copied a "go."

A message sounded over the secure channel "Firelight, Firelight, Firelight, weapons free and good hunting."

Buns grinned. Here we go. She jetted forward.

* * *

Keflavik airfield's radar screens suddenly went white-

Jamming-

"Incoming air raid!" the officer of the watch shouted and gave orders to scramble. Raid sirens sounded over the city and sending civilians running to the nearest safety shelter and pilots to their planes. The first two planes- a pair of Hailstorms fresh from France - rolled down the runway and were airbone three minutes later, the SAM sites were flipped online and the operators pointed their radars skyward and tightened the focus to burn through the jamming.

"Confirmed type, American E-7 Eagle-Eye" the radar officer shouted and gave the bearing to be a hundred miles west by southwest. The commander in the flight control tower directed the four Hailstorms toward the area and gave them clearance to engage.

The four Hailstorms nodded and at a crisp order from their commander spread to a "finger four" formation, with the commander spearheading in a "V" his wingmate at his right, and the other two to his left. They switched their Air intercept radars to full and waited to burn through the jamming.

Fifty miles to the target, the jamming abruptly stopped. The commander gazed in confusion and paused for a fatal second.

All four fighters' lock warnings lit up and were blotted out of the sky before they could react.

* * *

From the east, directly _opposite_ of where the Hailstorms had been scrambled another four Rafael IIIs, green and grey camouflage perfectly matching Iceland's mountainous terrain and bearing markings of the Royal Air Force, streaked in low hugging the mountains and hills to hide themselves from radar. Soldier's posted on the mount only recognized that they were Rafeal IIIs and assumed they were friendlies. The RAF fighters popped up simultaneously and lit off their antiradar seeking missiles and fired.

It was a textbook perfect wild weasel mission, the Rafael IIIs had come in without warning and loosed a volley of eight missiles at eight targets. Four SAM sites didn't know what hit them, one managed to shut his radar to try to decoy the missile but failed and the concrete bunker housing the main Radar coverage for the Eastern sector was cratered. Two spun off when they lost targets and detonated among the hilltops. Free of their missiles, they turned to visually aquire the rest as they fired off flares and foil chaff and switching on their tail jamming pods at such close range SAMS were useless. In the next ten minutes they savaged the rest of the SAMS with JDAMs and cluster bombs and were only forced to disengage when two European Rafaels attempted to engage them. The other Rafaels dropped whatever bombs they had left (making sure they aimed for the airfield and away from the Civilians) and went to afterburner towards the west, the European interceptors angrily scrambling behind them. What had been two European fighters suddenly became eight, then twelve in hot pursuit as the Rafaels jinked high and low and expended the remaining countermeasures to deflect locks.

Macdonald and her Baseplates got locks, and using their helmet systems painted all twelve enemies with locks and transmitted the firing sequences to the pair of B-1 lancers not far behind. Sixteen Quarrels were launched, twelve from the Lancers and Four from the Raptors.

The Euros were taken completely by surprise and scattered in all directions firing countermeasures desperately. Eight went down and the others were directed to turn back under the cover of the Anti-Air weaponry that surrounded Keflavik.

"I think I got one!" Baseplate three shouted.

"That's phase one." Macdonald breathed, it had taken less than two minutes to engage and shoot down those fighters. She checked her fuel states and was pleased to see they were operating within acceptable parameters. "here goes two." She muttered and hit the afterburners, thumbing the chaff as she did.

* * *

"Holy Shit!" Dean didn't even hear himself say that over the roar of the fighters screaming over head. "those are F-22s! Our boys!"

Wong said something that Dean didn't hear, flares and chaff popped out at even intervals as the Raptors came in low overhead. The roar of their engines was soon eclipsed by the falling note of a-

Bombs fell from overhead, Dean made sure that the Laser designator in his binoculars was pointing squarely at the power plant, he saw six bombs fall dead on target. The station went up in a fireball, a bright light that heralded the darkness that would envelop Keflavik for a long long time.

The Raptors, while stealthed to radar most certainly provided good infrared and visual targets as the remaining SAM launchers switched to infrared to try to identify but the Raptors had come in low popping flares as they went and providing such a large heat bloom so close to the infrared sensors they overloaded and presumptuously didn't engage anything at all. The gunners had a choice to engage by visual and did so quickly, tracer rounds laced the air around the Raptors and eventually to the B-1s as they streaked slowly overhead laden by bomb loads. One took a hit on its return pass, a lucky shot that seared through the wings and sliced into the rear engine quarters exploding it and sending the B-1 tumbling down. It crashed not two hundred meters from the SEALs position knocking PFC Walker who was kneeling flat on his side and sent rocks and pebbles into the air to shower the ground like hail. It only took Dean one look to understand that nobody had gotten out of that plane alive, he searched the air-no parachutes.

"Lets move SEALs," he said. If they hung around any longer this place would be crawling with European Enforcer troops. "And bring your trash, Walker get off your ass and make sure we don't leave tracks."

Like ghosts they disappeared running away from the flames and silently checking one victory for the good guys.


	11. Fraternizing in the Ranks

A new message from Doghouse was forwarded to Jamesson on Kennedy.

OPERATION FIRELIGHT RESULTS ONE B-1 LANCER LOST WITH ALL CREWMEN X WING REPORTS NO SURVIVORS X 12 CONFIRMED ENEMY PLANES DOWNED X BETWEEN TEN TO TWENTY AAA DESTROYED X TWO RUNWAYS CRATERED BUT DEEMED REPERABLE IN A SHORT TIME X GREYHOUND REPORTS KEFLAVIK MAIN RADAR SITE IS DOWN X KEFLAVIK POWERPLANT IS DOWN X NO SURVIVORS FROM CRASH BOMBER X NO NEW SUPPLIES HEADING IN X SEND BRITS OUR THANKS X

Jamesson smiled. He hadn't planned the operation but wanted to know every detail of it, he was after all the man charged with taking Iceland and from what the report said, it put quite a dent into Iceland's main air base, decreasing their attrition rate against his ships. Iceland, for the moment had been neutralized and now with the British fighting on their side (he heard it was their Rafaels that pulled the Wild Weasel stunt in) they had essentially cut off the north European fleet that was chugging towards Iceland from its air base umbrella. The Iceland base was of course still quite operational but nowhere near the threat it used to represent to his fleet, and he heard the second part of the assault, "preparing the battlefield" he'd heard the JSF commanders call it was already underway and would somehow neutralize Rejavik and leave Iceland with only the small private airfield with which they could launch a few fighters but that was it.

Having the British Navy work with the United States Navy was something Jamesson was prepared for but did not expect it. Pre war, the United States and British Navy's often sortied with each other learning to operate jointly and the mutual respect grew from it. For five years Britain isolated itself from other countries, it was good to be working with them again. And the few ships they offered to bolster Jamesson's fleet was very nice indeed.

The United Kingdom deployed her only Carrier group off the coast of Scotland to flank the known area where the European fleet was operating, they would cut off their retreat while Jamesson's US task force would hammer their front. The UK was much sneakier than anyone had expected, they were cunning and used modern military tactics with the superb reputation british troops always maintained in wars. Despite "not being involved" in the war, the UKs sub surface fleet had infiltrated European waters and now that the war had kicked off, were raising nine hells all over their ports from mining outlets and shipping lanes to lopping off the odd patrol the Brits were excellent at what they did, three of their Nuclear Attack boats were operating around Iceland and slowly choking its tiny Navy. Jamesson hadn't heard from his submarines but that was natural. Sub captains had to be let off the leash to do their own thing, captains were selected for their aggressive tactics, intellect and above all ability to take initiative when they saw it. Jamesson's boats were probably raising just as much hell as the Brits.

The admiral took a stroll on the flight deck where two Bobcats were just shooting off for their Combat Air patrol. He'd bolstered that from four fighters to eight up at all time and two tankers to go with them. A necessary countermeasure against what the Euros had been throwing at him. They'd slowly wittled away at his fleet, killing a destroyer one day, maybe two frigates the next, wounding USS Ticonderoga, a cruiser, so badly it had to turn around and scurry back to Norfolk for repairs and pulling a destroyer for escort duty.

He looked out to the port side of the ship where a dozen frigates and destroyers in perfect station keeping lay out to the horizon. This was the British compliment to the task force, bolstering his badly wounded forces. It might have been unpatriotic to say it but _damn_ seeing Her Majesty's flag waving in the sea air like this was uplifting to no end. He raised his binoculars to get a fix on the leading destroyer, HMS Battleaxe, a sailor climbed up to the pilothouse and flashed a light in a US frigates direction, USS Davy Crockett. Jamesson had gotten quite good at Morse these past few days.

WHAT THE DEVIL IS A DAVY CROCKETT, HMS Speartip wanted to know. It took a minute for USS Davy Crockett to respond.

AT LEAST WE DONT NAME SHIPS AFTER THE END OF OUR DICKS Davy Crockett flashed back.

Jamesson smiled. They were all getting along just fine.

* * *

"Yes sir, he's been hiding in our baffles ever since we took on air." Kennedy was still asleep, he deserved it. Williams might not have been the one in a million sonarman Kennedy was but he was eager and learning. Toland remembered when he was just a greenhorn on a sub all those years ago. "I got a whiff of him just as we dived, he's been trailing us for awhile now."

"You have a confirmed Identity on him?" Nolan asked, so there was an unidentified submarine trailing behind Chicago. Not on Toland's watch. He felt good after those four hours of sleep, such a short time but then again he was caffeine high at the moment.

"No, it was only there for a second sir, I captured the noise but I ain't got a clue as to what she is." Williams shrugged.

"How far away is he?"

"Six hundred to a thousand meters out?" Williams shrugged again. "I can't tell with our baffles masking his noise."

"With all our noise" Toland kept in mind that they were only going fifteen knots and were usually silent at such sluggish speed "do you think he might have been able to slip out?"

"Not likely." Williams thought aloud, "if he changed his direction any he would have slipped out of the baffles and I would have heard him definitely."

"what if he stopped waited for us to gain some distance then chugged behind us outside our baffles?" Nolan asked Toland. Toland thought about that for a moment.

"I don't think so, why would you disengage so far from a target if you can breathe down his neck without him knowing, the captain's good if he can get this close without us knowing." Toland winced inwardly saying that, it took quite a long time for Chicago to surface and replenish her air supplies, two hours on the surface had left her dangerously vulnerable and he had found out that the towed array Sonar was not working since it had been buffeted by waves and had to be retracted. It wouldn't take much skill to sneak up on Chicago in such a state of vulnerability.

"so what do we do?" Williams asked his eyes never leaving the screen.

Nolan and Toland look at each other.

"Crazy Ivan?" Nolan asked.

"What's that?" Williams asked.

"Its when a sub goes all stop and turns to check if something is trailing its baffles. The only thing a trailing ship can do is copy the all stop, but the problem is that with the forward momentum he tends to drift forward." Nolan answered. "if he's this close though he might ram us."

"I'd rather have him ram us than pop us with a fish." Toland said, "let's do this and add a twist. Are you sure he's behind us sailor?"

"He's gotta be unless he did what the XO said." Williams nodded furiously.

"Its worth the risk, I'm taking the Conn." Toland said. He flipped the intercom "General quarters all hands to battle stations, set for condition red." When he returned to the conn, the centers lighting dimmed from blue to red. "Helmsman, get ready for crash stop and hard port on my mark. Make the rudder left full and bearing two seven zero. Then I want engines all reverse and a right full rudder to turn us two seven zero from that datum on my second mark, sound off."

"Helm is ready."

"Engine is ready." The intercom crackled in response. Toland thought for a moment then spoke through it again.

"Weapons, load tubes one and two with Mark 48s. flood and open when you are ready, get ready for a snap shot."

After a minute, the response came. "Weapons ready."

"Sonar switch to active after all maneuvers are completed."

"Sonar ready."

Okay. Toland breathed in and out then snapped out the countdown with his fingers. "three-two-one Mark!" the ship suddenly roared to a stop, trailing in on its own baffles and churning up water as the screws suddenly reversed to stop it dead in its tracks.

"My rudder is left full!" a sailor in the fore end shouted, "Bearing is reached!" he shouted after a moment.

"In Three, two, one Mark!" Toland snapped again and the ship reversed its course and rapidly turned back on its own bearing pointing down the direction it had travelled before, Williams sent out three rapid pings.

"Evaluate Confirmed submarine designating Sierra one at Three Six Zero, range eight hundred yards-Sir he's opening his outer doors!"

"Firing solution!" Weapons shouted

"Hold your fire." Toland said calmly inviting a quick glance from his XO. "We're too close for the torpedo to arm unless we remove that safety and I don't want it coming back on us. Get me the Gertrude."

The Gertrude underwater phone allowed submarine captains to speak ship to ship, but it was very short ranged and made quite a lot of noise if used. Chicago was already at a stand off against a possible enemy both ships had their torpedoes locked in but neither fired. Toland took that to be a good sign.

"Unidentified vessel this is the USS Chicago," he hailed "Identify yourself or you will be fired upon."

"We are HMS Torbay." The response came garbled but understandable Toland breathed a sigh of relief, a british boat, neutral to his knowledge so what were they doing way out here?

"Chicago this is Torbay actual, Captain Wilde speaking." Yes Toland could definitely hear that British accent. Toland flipped the intercom to broadcast all over the ship, they deserved to know, but how could he tell that this wasn't a European boat playing word games.

"one moment Torbay." He hated to be rude, especially if the Brits were as stuck up about manners as their reputation was he shut off the Gertrude. "head into my cabin," he told Nolan "and grab the old Naval war books from 2010 when we were operating with the British, see if you can find a code phrase from there." Nolan raced aft and came back two minutes later the book open to the list of code phrases British and American subs used to identify each other. He picked the first one and hoped the other sub was who they said they were and knew what he was doing."

"Torbay this is Chicago Actual, Captain Toland speaking."

"Go ahead Chicago."

"Tango Whiskey." Toland shot off the code phrase. There was a muffled sound on the other line; it sounded like someone was chuckling.

"one moment Chicago." The line cut.

"Easy, easy." Nolan chided the men. Toland waited a painful four minutes.

"Say again Chicago?" Torbay asked.

"Tango Whiskey." Toland repeated

"Golf Bravo." Torbay now a confirmed british boat replied.

"Good to know you Torbay."

"good to know you Chicago." Torbay's Captain had an easy booming laugh in his voice. "My my your jumpy. Bloody brilliant move back there, the crazy Ivan and twist. Bloody Brilliant."

"Nice approach yourself, we only detected you once." Toland chuckled a little in relief as Nolan ordered the outer doors closed. "And of course we're jumpy, we were just rudely interrupted from our last fiasco."

"Crashed a little tea party the American did, did he?" Wilde chuckled. "We were in quite a fracas ourself a few ours ago, sunk the bloomin' Iceland carrier-"

"You're the son of a bitch that ruined my approach!" Toland couldn't help but portray shock in his voice. Him! That british son of a bitch did it!

"You fired those missiles then?" Wilde asked.

"Yes sir, why you have no idea how much-" Toland forgot his manners completely.

"Got to congratulate you on a brilliant save mate. And a good pair of kills." Wilde said "I'd shake your hand if I could but the Sea's a crazy thing." Toland was lost for words.

"What's that?"

"Your missiles came and save us mate, we were trapped against the cliffs with those two frigates boxing us in, then your missiles hit. You're heroes Chicago!"

Cheers went up around the ship. Toland couldn't believe it, "Hang-hang on say that again?"

"You saved us Chicago, blew those two Frigates right out of the water, confirm two kills for yourselves!"

Two kills! Better than that old carrier any day!

"Thank you Torbay, but why did you hit the Iceland Carrier?"

"Didn't you hear Chicago, we went to war against the Euros. Her Majesty's fleet is at your service." Toland smiled. A good way to end today's sortie.


	12. Frozen

"This stealth business will kill us commandant!" General Bankole, Commander in Chief of European forces, roared as he berated General Weber for his losses. "You cannot receive such losses at this stage of the game! With the United Kingdom cutting into our flight lanes we are having troubles reinforcing you!"

It was Webers fault the Americans had gotten good at this game? The German man seethed inwardly at being berated by a _French_. "You said you had plans to neutralize the British threat!" Weber hissed back over wishing that he actually could speak with Bankole face to face and not over a video uplink. By god, he was lucky to even _have_ a video uplink! He'd thoughtfully sent in requests for spare power generators to be brought in and they had arrived conveniently before the attack, now the command center and control towers in Keflavik were running again, but the civilian engineers woefully stated it would take months and money for the real power plant to become operational again.

The United States had plunged Iceland into electrical darkness, and becoming accustomed to flying in Iceland's 21 hour sunlight had made Weber's pilots ill prepared for night flights, which now with the Americans knocking out the east sides main radar center they would be sure to attack at night.

His SAMs had been savaged, out of the twenty missiles he had, only four remained. Four! He'd put in request for more but for some reason European _French _Parliament felt it wise to move those SAMs up to the Northern French border- as if the United Kingdom had the manpower and resources to launch strikes against the entirety of the mainland! Norway was flying in what assets they had, six new SAMs were already on their way but they were subject to endless raids by the Royal Air Force and their American built F-35 lightnings, Norwegian pilots would constantly be fighting to their destination at Keflavik and back. This whole business with the British could end the entire Iceland operation! When would Bankole end that problem?

"The British are being dealt with as we speak, we've begun raiding the southern island with fighter bombers." Bankole noted. Weber leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. He hoped the French bastard knew how pissed he was. "and we are transferring units to the front to ready the invasion."

"However-" he said before Weber could speak "if the Americans neutralize Iceland they can _reinforce_ the British position and halt our efforts! Understand Commandant Weber, the british have a fine history of winning against anything that decides to engage them over the channel. Do _not_ let the Americans take your positions, the fate of Europe rests in your hands!"

Dammit! If Weber's position was of such importance then maybe he could get resupplied? No, the Frenchman wouldn't bother helping out his brothers in Iceland. Weber seethed and cut the video and went outside to survey the airfield once again. Lorries and steam rollers were busy paving over the craters in the runways and were making good progress. The Enforcer Corp Commander, Colonel Diego of the 27th Paratroops had volunteered his entire battalion to aid in the repair efforts.

"Finally, it gives my troops something to do." Diego had said just a few hours earlier as he directed the repair efforts. Weber understood, even in the air force discipline must remain tight. Elite troops like Paratrooper Kommandos were not good for holding an island and civilian population such as this. They were meant for offense, for action, not for loafing around guarding a people that had no spark of rebellion in them. Elite troops without an enemy to fight grew bored and mischevious. Weber had heard of a few incidents with the civilian population already. But that was not of Weber's concern.

He had to protect those troops from the air threat and he would do that with the resources he had. He spread the remaining SAMS and guns around on the hilltops and doubled the combat air patrol eight fighters would fly in racetrack pattern circles around the island and he ordered Rejavik's airfield to do the same. The mobile radar site was finally up and running and would be helicopter lifted to the highest mountain to help counter that low level flying nonsense that the RAF used to dodge under the scope. But one other thing bothered him, the American bombers sent in had been loaded with cluster munitions and laser guided bombs and the raptors were not equipped with such infrared lasers necessary to guide bombs in. That meant foot troops. There were enemy commandos on the island but it would be up to Diego to sniff them out. Diego had already responded by doubling the helicopter patrols and extending their patrol raidius. Two helicopters would now be sortieing every three hours. No one could hide from the Enforcers for long.

* * *

"Down and _freeze_!" Dunn shouted at the head of the patrol. The SEALs did just that, dropping onto the rocky surface and not moving to attempt to blend in with the surroundings. Lieutenant Dean saw why in just a few moments. Two Enforcer Cheetah gunships cycled into view, their helicopter rotors chop-chop-chopping maybe two miles from them. Accompanying them was a Gadfly troop transport chopper, that could hold an entire rifle platoon or a small howitzer, either one was bad news for the SEALs.

If the gunships left anything of them that is.

"Shit." Sanchez hissed and unslung his MR-C rifle and activated the guncamera. Dean hissed at Sanchez to turn it off and cover the glass, sunlight glinting off the lense was not ideal right now. Dean could see the forty millimeter cannon jutting out from the chins of the gunships and the twin rocketpods under them were capable of killing tanks with high explosive missiles. They were not good for Dean's rifle squad caught out in the open. Dean prayed the camouflage worked as the gunships slowly turned towards their position and came towards them…

"There!" the cheetah's copilot shouted "Ten degrees to the left."

"Got it. At least these patrols aren't a total waste." The pilot nodded and flipped the master arm switch and made sure the weapon was functioning. "Cleared to fire."

The copilot took control of the 40mm and set it for a five round burst with a single pull of the trigger. He lined up the sights on the small target hiding in the rocks hoping to blend in and squeezed.

The burping sound of the 40 millimeter almost made Dean jump and fire but he held it in realizing that the shots hadn't been aimed at him and he turned painfully slowly to see who the gunship had targeted.

A mountain goat tumbled down from the rocks a 40 millimeter round had exploded its head like a water balloon smearing the rocks with red blood. The Gadfly hovered overhead and a squad of riflemen rapelled down to retrieve their trophy. They cleaned and skinned the goat right there and hoisted it up and entered after their prize. The three helos dipped forward and flew away as quick as they came. Only when they were out of earshot did Dean attempt to breathe again.

"Too close." Wong whispered.

"Far too close." PFC Coyle agreed.

"Okay screw orders we're sticking to the rocks a bit more." Dean said and pointed to an outcrop that would provide a good piece of cover.

"Where are we headed now skipper?" Sanchez asked. Dean pulled out the map.

"here, hill 188, this overlooks the airport from the other side of where we were."

"its forty miles of rough terrain." Sanchez scowled a moment.

"better get moving then." Dean hitched his pack higher on his shoulders and lead the way, rifle safety flipped off.

* * *

"General Quarters, all hands to action stations, sub action port." Brown sounded for what was the fifty seventh time on this nine day voyage. He'd been counting. The USS Davy Crockett sprang to action once again a little wearier every time. How long would it be before someone slipped and people died?

None of the merchantmen had been killed yet but the Euro subs were getting closer and closer to nailing one all the time. And that torpedo that had just past him came far too close to comfort. It was only a ten yard miss that passed aft and ran out of fuel. He'd been on the edge of the torpedoes range and he'd been lucky it didn't ping his ship.

"Ship is ready sir." The XO said. "hatchet is in the air."

Garcia on the weapons console directed the ASW helo down the torpedoes bearing, with luck they might be able to nail him. Brown directed his ship to move closer to the Merchantmen, the better to protect them. Malloy dipped his sonar into the water-again and Marcus listened again. he went out to fifty miles and dropped a line of sonobuoys, he made MAD passes anything to find a submarine-nothing. The area of ocean they passed over was notoriously rugged with channels plateaus and canyons for a sub to hide in for eternity; perfect cover against a sub hunting expert like "hatchet" Malloy.

Two more british ASW helos formed up with them, callsigns "Scepter" and "Highlander" and joined the search. They didn't pick up anything.

"Bloody bastard hell." Highlander cursed in a thick Irish Brogue.

"Fuckin A." Malloy agreed, it was always frustrating when a submarine got away because they knew it would come back to haunt them later and this Task Force couldn't take any losses. Any one sub that got away meant a potential death dealer for a ship in the fleet sometime in the future.

"Let's call it a day." Marcus sighed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. They'd been at this for over two hours now without any sort of contact. "This is getting ridiculous."

"alright, good try anyway boys." Malloy said and turned the Seahawk around. Just from this Task force he'd already gotten nearly a hundred hours of combat time, and in less than an hour of those he'd made kills. There were two subs painted on the hull of his helicopter; he knew he was good. Sometimes though those submarines were better and it was just so frustrating that malloy couldn't see that-

Something glinted off in the distance. Malloy blinked and idled the helo.

"the hell?" Marcus nudged his copilot. "what are you just sitting around for?"

"Hang on." Malloy said and squinted his eyes were dead from looking into the sun too many times but maybe just maybe-there there it was again, a metallic glint far off to the northeast. "Hey get some eyeballs out there. Malloy physically pointed at where he saw the contact and angled the helicopter so that Marcus could get a better look. The copilot broke out his binoculars and peered through.

"I don't see nothin- wait. There's something out there."

Malloy checked his fuel, good for another two hours and then he'd have to turn back. He swung the helicopter down the bearing and shrugged off the British requests. Soon the other two helos were following him lagging six miles behind.

"Crockett, this is Tomahawk we have a visual contact on bearing one one two we're going to check it out." Marcus radioed back to the Davy Crockett.

"Copy that Tomahawk, we are moving to your current mark now."

Marcus peered through the binoculars again, searching the horizon for-

There was a ship out there, judging from the length of the water contrail lines behind it it was going maybe twenty knots? Fast and getting away too.

"I've got a visual, it's a ship. Looks like a little patrol boat way out here." Malloy nudged the stick forward to quicken the pace it took ten minutes for Marcus to reestablish the contact-

"Look at those lines on her dude, that ain't American or British. Its too curvy." Marcus said as he peered through the binoculars. "That's a Euroboat!" Malloy was back on the radio in a heartbeat.

"Crockett this is Hatchet we have a confirmed blueboat contact on current bearing, it's a torpedo boat sir!"

"that's the bastard that tried to pop us one earlier." Marcus growled and flipped through the armaments, he had Two mark 37 torpedoes, subhunting torpedoes completely useless against a surface target. "Hatchet we are coming to your mark, weapons free on the blue boat if you can."

"We've got Mark thirty sevens Crockett, we can't shoot, Highlander, Scepter you have anything?"

"Negative on that." They both responded. Shit, that boat would get away if he didn't do something, anything he could outrun it but what was the point if he couldn't actually shoot it? He was letting the team down. Team? It was always the frigate and the helo that worked together to hunt subs, why couldn't they hunt surface targets? His mind raced as he went towards the patrol boat and passed it. A man on the deck cut loose with his rifle, Malloy swerved. He got an idea.

"Tomahawk! Get ready to drop a marker on the ship!" he turned as Marcus set up the drop, Malloy angled the seahawk low, nose down and high speed. Marcus called off the shots as if he were dropping a torpedo.

"Speed steady at twenty knots, elevate the nose a bit, and drop!" Marcus dropped a sonar marker down. It hit the boat but bounced off the hull and into the water where it began pinging wildly on active. "Crockett we've just dropped a marker at the blue boat we need you to-"

"I'm already on it." Captain Brown said. "good work, give me his speed and direction and we'll take it from here."


	13. Cowboys and Indians

The marker was showing up good on Garcia's weapons console and the automatic pinging lit up the enemy torpedo boat nicely. Brown had ordered best speed and pushed the steam reactors to a hundred and fifteen, well beyond operational limits he'd catch that boat by God. And that was for two reasons.

First was personal, you don't take a shot at the United States Navy and get away with it.

Two, a patrol boat wouldn't be this far out unescorted, he'd be the leading element of a much larger fleet, the carrier fleet this task force was hunting for. It was good to know they were close. But he couldn't let that ship get away, he probably had already radioed in the fleets position if he'd gotten close enough to take a potshot at one of the merchantmen. One less ship in the enemy fleet.

His frigate was doing fifty knots, almost unheard of in the fleet and the engine was about to blow, just five more minutes, that was all he needed, five more minutes to get him…

They closed to weapons range.

Garcia directed his team to unmask the starboard gun and load it with heavy rounds. The ensign manning the gun controls flipped the safeties off and in thirty seconds the antiship rounds were loaded and ready. They were in visual range now just a speck on the horizon, they'd take ranging shots. Brown turned to port to bring his broadside to bear and give Garcia's team the widest field of fire against the ship. Brown activated the radar to give him a better idea of where to aim and in three minutes, Garcia had a solution and popped five quick rounds in the direction of the enemy ship.

Two rounds fell short, kicking the water high in the air as the shells cannoned into the water just to the starboard side of the ship, the European captain ordered evasive maneuvering and the ship began a zig zag. A torpedo was fired in their direction but missed by two miles, the boat having to cut wires to maneuver and the warhead was unable to direct on the frigate's noise. The next trio of rounds boxed the boat in, one fore, one aft and one over. The torpedo boat maneuvered frantically. The starboard gun fired five more times.

Two rounds landed short again, but the third clipped the engine casting sparks then smoke high into the air. The fourth and fifth hulled the ships midsection, slicing low just three feet above the waterline to cut into the hull and punch two very big hulls into the underside where the blue boat began to leak.

Brown smiled to himself, the first ship to ship engagement in over eighty years, and all of it in visual range too! It was good that he'd carried a short compliment of heavy rounds. The European torpedo boat was beginning to ride low in the water and move slower. Time to play the good guy.

He scribbled something down on his notepad and told a sailor to climb to the pilot light and flash the message: STAND DOWN YOUR WEAPONS, WE WILL ASSIST IN YOUR RECOVERY. Brown was satisfied. He had to show these Euros that Americans weren't the warhungry savages they thought Americans were. Plus they'd prove to be excellent intelligence assets in the future.

"Torpedo in the water!" Farmer shouted. So much for diplomacy.

Brown sighed and nodded to Garcia who fired his own torpedo down the same bearing and the Davy Crockett maneuvered away, inviting a clean miss by the European type 91 torpedo. The enemy boat had no luxury of maneuvering. The ship's engine was fried and was taking water fast. It took thirty seconds for the American Mark 32 torpedo to find its mark and take all the European sailors to hell. The first battle of the carrier fleets was going to begin, Brown got the flagship on the horn and hustled back to the formation.

* * *

Jamesson ordered all ships to go to condition 2 and sent out his F-35Es to search for the enemy fleet. F-35Es were the replacement for the older Navy Prowlers, electronic jamming and search fighters responsible for finding and jamming the enemy's radar. There were twenty F-35Es (backhandedly and affectionately called the "queer" by everyone but their pilots) with extra fuel. They were scanning in the direction of the Davy Crockett's contact. He rearranged the formation as well, the Merchantmen would take the inner Cordon with the cruisers giving them tighter protection with the Aegis anti air defense system built into the cruisers and loosened up the Task force's formation to give them maneuvering room. Greater chance of detection but a better defense.

Shade -6 a queer that had flown two hundred miles North by Northeast spotted the enemy shipborne air search radars first and radioed in the position and tracked the fleet for awhile. An AWACS, call sign Eye 2, towed smartly into radio range and vectored Shade-6 in.

The queer was a two seater F-35 with a pilot and an electronics officer immediately behind him. The ship had no weapons save for a single aging Sidewinder for self defense, but was a top of the line radar system. The wing pylons had extra jamming and search radar pods to aid in its task. Shade -6 crawled a little closer to the enemy radars, praying that the F-35Es stealth coating lived up to its invisible reputation. He slowed to a hundred knots almost to a stall, then descended to a thousand feet and inverted. The paint scheme on his fighter was robins egg blue and matched the sky perfectly, flying upside down allowed him and his copilot to see everything on the water.

The pilot counted a dozen ships of varying sizes below, frigates, destroyers, and the curved fore end of a "jump" carrier, short and stubby and still able to launch VTOL fighters. It was small compared to the Norwegian and French Flat tops that could shoot off the Naval variants of the Hailstorm and Typhoon but the pilot couldn't see any of them from here. Was it worth risking a radar sweep? He was so close to the enemy fleet it was a marvel he hadn't been detected yet.

"Hey, energize one of the pods." He ordered his copilot. The copilot flipped a switch to activate a counter search pod, checking to see just how many search radars were operating. "Counting maybe Twelve radars boss." He responded after checking his computer. Could he risk getting a little closer and scanning the entire area? That might alert the Euros to his presence and the fact that the United States Navy now knew where it was. But he needed to know the position of the enemy carriers; those were the priority ships of all Naval battles since World War II. He grinned a little. Actually, this was the _first_ carrier battle since WWII. He leveled out his fighter and scanned the sky, he hadn't seen any enemy Combat Air patrols but they had to be up here.

"I'm going to climb to cloud cover." He decided finally. "then you give this place two sweeps and we bug out of here."

"Roge." His copilot said and gave him a thumbs up. The pilot pulled slightly on the stick to bring them to forty thousand feet, then the copilot activated their search radar.

"Got them!" he slapped the console "Counting six carriers and a whole shit load of other ships boss! Four fighters are six miles out, lets boogey out of here!"

Shade-6's pilot needed no further encouragement, turning east and hitting the afterburners lighting up any ship's infared sensors if they hadn't already picked up the radar sweeps. Two SAMs were fired at them and successfully jammed by the pods, they'd think he came from Britain if he went East, he had just enough fuel to turn make the return leg. Halfway down he made his report to Eye 2 who made that report to the USS JFK. Fighters were launching two minutes later. Jamesson's pilots would be taking the fight to them. And they had rather special surprises waiting for them too.

* * *

"All right." Dean set his pack down wearily. "We can bunk up here for the next few hours and sleep." The exhausted SEALs needed no second encouragement, the rocky outcrop was overlooking a highway and a farm house was just two miles out. These people lived very _isolated _ lives. "neighbors" in Iceland could be six or seven miles down the road, nobody would go next door to borrow an egg here. The rocks gave his men great cover if those helicopters ever came back and if it came down to a firefight, they provided a good height advantage as well. Natural cover for his men was great in Deans book. He couldn't believe it, nearly a full day of trekking and they were only half way to their point. He checked in with Doghouse to radio in their report.

"Slight adjustment to your course Greyhound." Doghouse said. "We need you to move to Hill 166, be there at 0100 tomorrow then continue on your course."

"We could use a little food Doghouse." Dean groused, they'd expended more calories than they thought hoofing it over such rough terrain and were down to four MREs between six men. Not nearly enough.

"I'll send you some pizzas." Doghouse said and cut the line.

Dean let out a breath and slumped down.

"You know we could try asking one of the farmers for food." Wong said and gestured at the farmhouse below. "we know their home, I mean the tractor and car are out front and its not as if they're starving or anything."

"We could try _taking _some of it." Dunn said chewing on the last of his beef jerky. Like Dean he'd packed snacks. "Look at all of these sheep around here man, just begging to be hunted." Dunn smiled, he'd been hunting all of his life and was a crack shot with the M-14 EBR sniper rifle he'd carried all this way. "does anybody know how to cook a sheep?"

"Cook with what?" Sanchez snorted. "fire's gonna give away our position in this terrain. Good idea, but bad idea."

"Plus we'd be intruding on these nice folks hospitality." Dean lay down on the rocky ground. "Remember? Civilians first?"

Dunn snorted and curled up beside his pack. Wong took the first watch, kneeling with his rifle keeping an eye on the road and the farmhouse. Dean fell asleep in ten minutes. He woke up thirty minutes later by Wong.

"Hey cars coming down the drive-" he hissed. Dean immediately roused himself and trained the binoculars at the farmhouse. It wasn't just a car it was an Enforcer APC, not one of the heavy badgers but the smaller lightly armored Leopard, like the Americans Hummvees. The car screeched in front of the house and four men got out, a fifth climbed out of the turret and stood by the vehicle to guard it.

"Shit they don't look friendly." Dean whispered and noted the Enforcer Kommando uniforms they wore. The Euros moved around the house cautiously quietely as if scoping out the site, much like Dean would have done in hostile territory and-

"Shit!" Wong snapped as one man kicked a door in and his partners rushed inside. Screams and shouts rose from the house and the sound of shattering plates and hard plastics clattering on tile were like alarm bells in Deans ears.

"We got to do something sir!" Dunn hissed.

"Our orders are to avoid contact!" contradicted Sanchez.

"What do we do skipper?" Coyle asked. Dean started moving as quickly and stealthily as he could down the hill. The others wordlessly followed. They snuck around the other side of the house where Dean wordlessly gave them hand orders. Sanchez, Wong and Dunn would take the right Dean, Coyle and Trip would take the left, they'd eliminate any guards they could and silently. Without a word the three moved. Dean screwed the silencer on his M9 baretta and peered shucked his packs. He'd need to move fast or he'd be dead, he didn't want to personally test the dragon skin armor he wore. He removed his hat and risked a peek around the corner. One of the Europeans was standing on his toes trying to get an eye on the action that was happening inside. Moans from a woman crept through the air like a black fog.

Dean didn't want to have to shoot the man, the sound of the body hitting the ground might alert any of the others. He'd have to get up close and personal, he drew his combat knife and tested the edge as he slowly crept forward. There was apparently a respite from the action inside as the commando lowered his head and reached for a cigarette when out of the corner of his eye he spotted Dean. Dean exploded from his crouched position and slammed into the man jabbing under the sternum with the knife and cupping his mouth with the other hand. Three quick stabs let Dean know the man was weakening and he finished him off with a fourth to the throat. The blood bubbled in Dean's cupped hand, he slowly lowered the dying man to the ground where he gurgled till he lay still. Dean beckoned the other two forward trying very hard not to look at his bloody hand as he did so. He risked another peek and drew his pistol. The one standing by the leopard slumped down to the ground as Dean spotted him, the MR-C gun camera barrel withdrew behind the corner as the other three SEALs made a cautious advance. Dean held up one finger. Sanchez held up two, closed his fist then held up two again and pointed inside. Two more still in the house. Sanchez moved cautiously to the door, Dean stacked up on the otherside and gave a nod. Sanchez pushed the door in with Dean half a second behind him.

It took him only a second to gather the situation inside. A commando stood over the doubled over form of a very young woman and was in the process of unbuttoning his pants as Dean entered what appeared to be a kitchen. That act and uniform immediately registered him as a "threat" so Dean raised his M9 before he even felt his first step hit the floor and triggered a double tap to the head.

_Puff puff._ The silencer mechanism worked perfectly on the M9 a pistol the SEALs had affectionately called the "hush puppy" ever since Vietnam. Deans target dropped to the floor with two nine millimeter holes just behind his ear, where the catipitol lobe was located. Then everything went back to normal speed. The other five SEALS swooped in behind Dean as he heard thumps come down the stairs and a voice calling in Spanish.

"_Drop the Fucking gun!" _Wong shouted, where was he? Dean couldn't see him but obviously the man didn't freeze and did something stupid. Dean heard the metallic click of a bolt cycling through three rounds and then a heavy thunk hit the floor. _"tango down!"_ the shout came from Wong again. Then two seconds later "Clear!" It was only then did Dean allow himself to survey the damage.

The woman bent over was wearing a nightgown torn in several different places and showed quite a bit of skin. She was bruised in her face discoloring it an ugly purple that marred what had to been a striking woman. The blonde hair was dank with sweat and something else and there was a telltale bump around her midsection that Dean immediately realized made him all the more sickened and glad he had come.

There was an old woman and a man lying on the ground a single hole through both of their heads.

"Sir, they got canned food here." Coyle said trying very hard not to gawk at the girl who had to be no more than nineteen.

"Hey what's your name?" he asked gently and holstered the pistol making very sure the safety was off.

The woman remained where she was and sobbed, her lip trembled a little. Dean knelt and raised her up with his hands, she refused to meet his gaze. "What's your name, do you speak English?"

"You-Y-You kill…" she managed

"No we came to kill those men. For what they did to you and your…parents." Dean took a guess. "what's your name?"

"V-Vigdis." She mumbled around sobs "Vigdis Augustdottir" Vigdis daughter of August. Dean wondered briefly what Vigdis meant then snapped back to reality. "You have to come with us Vigdis. You can't stay here now?"

"My parents they-"

"They're dead. And if you stay here more Euros will come to do bad things to you. Come with us, we are friends." Vigdis sniffed and wiped her face then jerked a nod.

"Grab as much canned food and liquor if you can. We need to make this look like an accident." He quietely ordered his men, then turned back to Vidgis trying very hard not to get distracted by how pretty she looked even now. "Miss, I need you to go upstairs and grab whatever you need, clothes shoes food anything. Can you do that for me?" he said as calmly and quietely as he could she nodded and fairly ran upstairs.

"all this for food?" Trip muttered and shot Coyle a look that said he got them into this mess.

"Take a can each guys we can't make it look like anybody's been here. If too much food is gone then the next people here will get suspicious." Sanchez said.

"how are we going to make them _unsuspicious_?" Coyle shook his head and packed a can of tomatos and soup. "When they find the bodies, somebody is going to think this is out of place."

"We load the bodies in the van and drive it off the cliff." Dean said. "Put a little liquor with them it'll look like an accident. No wait, I got a better idea…"

Vigdis came down soon a small backpack strapped around her and sporting a thick grey sweater and green stockings. Her eyes were red and puffy, she was still crying. The SEALs set out to do their work leaving Dean to awkwardly comfort the girl.

\


	14. Tag Back

It took Vice Admiral Jamesson five hours to personally brief the fleet; each captain and each wing commander of the fighter corp listened intently as the American Admiral went through every painstaking detail of the operation which he called "Tag Back". The British fighter commanders were present via a video chat and were just as attentative, they'd be performing joint operations to make Tag Back work. Questions were asked and were dutifully answered, the battleplan was adjusted slightly to make it more full proof as both British and Americans analyzed it and attempted to see it from the enemy's point of view like they had been taught as tactical thinkers. At 1800, they were sent back to their respective ships where they would brief all of the other pilots. Jamesson was throwing all of his air assets at the European fleet to knock them down with one hit.

2100. The first fighters began to lift off F/A-18 Superhornets carrying nothing more deadly than extra fuel and buddy tanks to transfer it to other planes went first. Seventy hornets formed up around the fleet and turned west by southwest. They would be flying for 200 miles.

The next craft that shot off were mixed F-35E Queers and Naval propeller driven AWACS E-6 Vigilants. They all turned Northeast, the Queers went first being faster and stealthier than the propeller craft.

The two dozen F-19 Bobcats lifted off soon afterword and headed directly north towards Iceland where they would fly for a hundred miles before turning Northeast and were followed by the entire Naval compliment of F-35 Lightnings outfitted with Viper Air to Surface missiles, laser targeting designators and JDAM munitions. A few F-35s fitted for air to air roles would remain behind to guard the fleet. This defense force only numbered twelve fighters. The strike force, numbering eighty six would be accompanied by three AWACS birds for strike coordination and protective jamming.

Tag Back was in place, Jamesson retired to his quarters for the night but remained awake. It was his plan but it was really all up to his Strike commanders to carry it out, he was just an old man that thought things out. Like a philosopher from Greece. He couldn't actually watch his plan unfold, they would be out of USN radar coverage and Jamesson wasn't helping his boys by staying awake at all. Needless, he muttered a quick prayer then swallowed a sleeping pill before lying on his cot to dream of the battle ahead.

At 2300 the Hornet groups' air search radars pinged seventy other Hornets heading towards them. The pilots weren't fooled, a few smiling in their seats as they realized the genius plan that Jamesson had put into motion. As they closed to visual range, helped by night vision visors the pilots could see the contacts were nothing more dangerous than old Predator UAVs flying at low speed. The pilots moved into position to individually refuel each of the Predators who were normally such short range craft they had to be tanked twice (as told in their briefing both by MC-170 tankers) just to reach their target. Once the last topped off at 2334 the Hornets turned back northeast to refit and refuel back at the fleet while the "hornets" turned north by northeast as according to plan.

2345. The Queer, Shade 4, detected weak radar transmissions in his area and called for support bringing an AWACS, Tollgate 6, on station two minutes later. Shade 4 went in, his sensors lighting up with active shipborne Air Search Radars. The Europeans were much more alert now ever since the last Queer had slipped through their Air search net and gotten away. There were eight fighters on patrol flying racetrack patterns-good they were east and at their rate of speed they would be in the Southwest area in forty five minutes. Shade 4 counted thirty search radars-more than half of the fleet!- and noted the gigantic plumes of the four carrier based Radars and radioed that in quickly to Tollgate 6 who vectored more Queers in to confirm it. At exactly 2400 the rest of the Queers, all twenty of them confirmed the position, speed and vector of the enemy fleet and Tollgate 6 radioed the operation go codeword.

"Reaper, Reaper, Reaper_"_ came over every fighter pilots secure channel and was followed by a string of coordinates that was quickly translated by the strike commanders who vectored their craft toward the direction. The predators remained on course and it would be another two hundred miles before they reached the combat area. The Strike group linked up with the British fighter force bolstering the bombers by an additional sixty F-35s and the fighter cover for those groups with twenty four F-35s outfitted for interceptor roles and Six British Queers with standoff jamming pods. Accompanying the Brits were three of their own AWACs craft – E-3 Sentries and refueling craft that topped off the American fighters who then switched under the command of the British strike commander codenamed "Overlord". Once ready, they turned southwest and would be arriving (if everything went according to plan) a scant twenty minutes after the Predators made contact from the _opposite_ direction.

The Queers and AWACs craft, their original job now finished slotted neatly into position twenty miles behind and a few thousand feet above the Predators who were now arriving on station. At the presumed edge of European Shipborne radar range, the Predators accelerated to two hundred and thirty knots, simulating supersonic fighter bombers laden down with heavy bomb loads. Ten seconds after that, when the American group commander felt the Europeans had gotten a decent radar look at the Predators pinging with F/A-18 superhornet transponders ordered the AWACS to energize their powerful crossband jamming equipment. Ten seconds after that, the first European fighters began lifting off, eight would shoot off every thirty seconds. The European Navy was just as disciplined and organized as their American counterparts and were now widening out the formation to give the ships room to maneuver.

2403, it was the next day. The Europeans began it by sending eighty six interceptors southwest, straight for the "hornets" nearly a hundred and sixty miles away. They prepared to stack another wave of interceptors in that direction, the additional fighters began flying circle patterns as they waited for orders. Seeing this, the southwest group commander signaled the next and codeword to the strike group opposite of him.

"Tag back, Tag back, Tag back."

Overlord immediately ordered his group in. The strike group of a hundred and eighty four fighters quickly closed the distance and entered the edge of the enemy radar detection range 200 miles out. But the European Radars were completely jammed from the opposite direction and the fighters were all stealthed.

Forty miles from the Predators, the Europeans finally burned through American radar jamming and locked their long range missiles in. The group commanders wisely fired their missiles at the longest range, at sixty miles American Vipers could achieve locks and fire on the ships. In the first volley alone, forty predators were blotted out of the night sky and a second volley, now coordinated by twelve European Sentinel AWACS craft was shot at the survivors. The European commander was already worried at this point, the Americans had been extremely clever with their tactics up until this point, these bombers were flying in dumb. A shout rang out from one of his Hailstorm pilots. The fighter was equipped with a long range TV camera enabling it to see forty miles out to target its Laser weapon. They'd been shooting at drones this whole time!" the Queers accompanying the Predators listened in on this chatter and swiftly energized their radio jamming pods to prevent them from warning their mother carriers. The Europeans had fallen right for the first American trap.

"Romeo" Fosker nudged the stick forward leading his Swift Intruders in a dive that pulled up two hundred feet above the black waves. Coming in low like this would help mask his radar presence and his infrared heat signature. The second squadron of Bobcats, the Wild Cards were at sixty thousand feet and sandwhiched between and a little behind the two American Squadrons were the British interceptor F-35s at forty thousand feet. Overlord ordered the radar jamming systems on the AWACS under his command activated and strike information began feeding into Fosker's heads up display. Thirty European reserve fighters were now in the air above the fleet, completely oblivious to the Americans presence, the other fighters were a hundred and twenty miles away shooting dummies. Boxes appeared around his HUD as they began tagging enemy fighters at the extreme range of his Radar.

"Weapons are hot lads." Overlord boomed. "Say again, cleared hot. Interceptor release authority is granted, keep those fighters off my bombers." An additional order over the radio sent three Queers in right behind Fosker's Intruders. Launch orders sounded off as the fighters above Fosker fired their AIM-6 Quarrels at long range. He wish he could have been shooting at those fighters right now but that wasn't his job. "Intruders, break by pairs and execute as planned." His squadron confirmed his orders and scattered. They accelerated to six hundred knots and rocketed toward the supposed area of the enemy fleet. The night was a green ominious glow for Fosker who was peering through the Night vision lenses integrated into his helmet. He began to see the faint squat blocks that made up enemy frigates and destroyers. He'd be buzzing them soon. Missile contrails screeched up, Fosker almost punched his countermeasures but realized they weren't targeting him. They were launching to intercept the strike group's surface to Air missiles who had just been launched. But with each fighter carrying a pair of Surface to Air missiles or bombs- that would make well over two hundred and fifty missiles to shoot down, aimed at a scant thirty or forty targets. And a single hit usually constituted a kill. He kept his thumb over the countermeasures anyway, he'd be using them shortly.

Fosker was sure that the enemy's infrared sensors could pick him up by now, he was a scant six miles away from the leading edge. Five miles, he nosed up and hit afterburners and broke the sound barrier. His fighter at such low altitude created ripples in the black sea as he flew straighter and truer than any arrow. He buzzed the bridge of a destroyer, appearing and disappearing between blinks and punched his flares, one pair of magnesium blinding light decoys every four seconds. Supersonic speed sent tremors through the ships he passed by, maybe throwing off the targeting solution for gun batteries at a point where they might need it. The bright lights of the flares served to blind anybody unfortunate enough to be standing on the deck or for a few seconds and to give the Infrared scopes such a massive heat bloom they would malfunction and not be able to aquire any targets.

Behind him, he heard more launch orders as the TV guided bomb equipped Lightnings made their passes. Were the bombs effective? Was the missile volley effective? Fosker would have to wait to find out.

"Overlord" Wild Card One shouted over the channel, "zero bandits over the fleet."

"Intruder Lead, Torch two, get your boys forward and snipe the bandit sentinels. Wild Card, Outlaw and Baker squadrons run cover for our boys then carry on right behind Intruders."

"Copy that Torch two." Fosker confirmed and ordered his squadron to form up and elevate to five thousand feet. His twelve man squadron slowed to a hundred and twelve knots to lower their heat signature and become invisible in the night sky once again. They turned and faced the European fighters who were coming back with a vengeance, a hundred and six miles away.

2415. Foskers air intercept radar began reading European transponders, all of them glowing angry red. He squinted his eyes searching for the bigger boxes that would be the enemy AWACs craft. The enemy were coming in across a six mile heading at four thousand feet, well below Fosker and his invisible fighters.

"Lead I count twelve enemy AWACs." His wingmate Whiplash said.

"Same as my count." Fosker nodded to himself. "Keep to formation, holler if you're in trouble, lets get in a little closer before we do anything." He'd wait until his boys were point blank-ten miles- away from their targets then get in close with Bushmaster heatseekers and twenty mm Vulcan cannons.

"Okay one target for each." He said " go in shoot with your close range units, then dive and break we form up on me, I'll be twenty miles south by southwest and see where we are from there. Ignore the escorts but be careful all the same." His squadron confirmed the order, he kept a watchful eye as the first European fighters streaked under at mach 1, completely oblivious to the twelve Bobcats above them. A sizeable few broke off and headed northwest, probably towards Iceland with fuel or ammunition troubles. "Got maybe twenty of them turning tail boss." Whiplash noted.

"Let them run, stay on target." Romeo Fosker replied grimly. Ten miles away. "Break now!" he barked and like a blooming flower the squadron peeled away to pursue their individual targets. Fosker's target was the one farthest away, it was running with three escort fighters behind it. Six miles toward it, two fighters peeled off of the formation and started gunning towards him, they probably picked him up on Infrared. Fosker accelerated and armed a pair of heatseekers, opening his missile bay doors and giving the enemy radar a good look at him as well. Keeping his eye on the enemy icons the computer piped a good lock tone and he loosed one each at them.

"Fox two, Fox two!" the pair of fighters immediately dived for the water bright sparks that were flares far off in the distance trailing behind them. His two missiles turned to follow, Fosker didn't care if his missiles hit and switched to his guns. The Sentinel had activated its jamming pods in self defense, good if he were shooting a radar guided missile at it but Romeo had a different approach in mind. He closed the distance quickly and visually spotted the last escort fighter coming towards him. The warning lock tone was weak, so his stealth signature was good at breaking up the lock. "Tallyho!" he shouted and hit the right rudder to track the incoming fighter. He clipped a burst of gunfire and kicked his fighter into an upwards roll, seeing his twenty millimeter cannon stitch up and across the nose of the Hailstorm and blow out its cockpit, a clean and surgical hit. He was inverted and came slashing downwards onto the Sentinel shooting a five second burst that sheered off its right wing in a flare of smoke and sparks

"That's a bandit down!" he snapped and dove toward the waves leveling out and hitting his afterburners five hundred feet above them. Ten of his fighters checked in. one was missing.

"Bulldog, come in Bulldog." Fosker tried raising him again. "Bulldog's down guys, keep your threat receivers hot, lets hit their backsides." He lead his squadron in a slow left turn around to put them behind the enemy fighter formation-

"Tallyho!" Intruder seven snapped "got eyes on enemy AWACS, one counting one enemy AWACS…Fox Two!"

"Good kill Good kill" Intruder eight said, "Boss we got incomings-evaluate nine bandits coming in twelve o'clock high."

"weapons free." Fosker said and brought his nose in line with one of the fighters. He saw flashes in the distance-

"devils coming in twelve level! Break break break!" Intruder three barked, and Fosker saw his fighters break formation and begin evasive maneuvers and countermeasures. He hadn't received a lock so he painted two with locks of his own and triggered his remaining pair of heatseekers, then climbed and fired his countermeasures again without waiting to see if they hit. He was above the enemy fighters between blinks, he slowed and sharpened his turn-it was back to the old days of dogfighting now, where pilots had to visually aquire their targets and shoot at them with guns because it was too close for missiles to track. Fosker found himself slotted in right behind a Typhoon, appearing black in his nightvision scopes save for the white hot afterburner trail. He triggered a burst that went right up the tail pipe and dove away from the flare of the explosion.

"Another one down-"

"Lead break left!" Fosker hauled the fighter left and saw tracers stream out on the right side of the cockpit windshield.

"Bandit on your six Romeo!" Whiplash roared "come in low and level I got him!" Fosker hauled the stick upward to level the fighter and swerved right by stomping on the right pedal-Whiplash's fighter came in from the top left guns blazing, Fosker felt the roar of the explosion behind him. "Got him!"

Fosker pulled up and angled a deflection shot at a passing Hailstorm that was chasing one of his fighters. The burst succeeded in forcing a course correction by the bandit where Fosker followed up with another one that clipped its wing and sent it tumbling uncontrollably down into the water. He smiled-that was his fifth confirmed he was an Ace! The first of this war!

The bombers had savaged the fleet, with one squadron of interceptors running cover at close range and the three british Queers that confounded the European firing solutions with their powerful jamming pods. TV guided bombs slashed down into the rudders and bridges of destroyers and frigates, but the ships that got the most attention were the carriers. The missile volley alone had done more than enough damage to the fleet, holing both the cruisers six destroyers an four frigates in the first volley, the four carriers took twelve hits between them; five missiles had locked on and scored hits on the French carrier and she was already sinking by the time the Lightnings got into range to drop bombs. The remaining three had holes put into their flight decks ruining them if they ever managed to limp away, only one did. The Norwegian carrier slipped out of the zone by abandoning her escorts and darkening its lights. The remaining two were not so lucky and were subject to no less than six bunker busting munitions apiece. The Spanish carrier was the last to sink subjecting itself to seven hits before a lucky shot hulled the deck and punched into the magazine snapping the ship in half with an explosion so powerful Overlord thought it might have touched off the nuclear reactor.

2450. Their jobs done the Lightnings turned southwest, their fighter escorts ahead of them as they turned to engage the rest of the European Naval Air Force. Half of them broke off and headed for Iceland realizing they would be more useful to mainland Europe if they survived. The other forty fighters were now charging towards the American bombers, the interceptors had expended all of their long range munitions but the enemy were uncoordinated thanks to the Swift Intruders quick kills of the Enemy AWACS.

The British Torches split the fighters into three groups going left right and above the enemy fighters to avoid their contact, the Euros realizing that they had been fooled turned around and went supersonic to chase. This was discouraged by two volleys of accurate missile fire from the Swift Intruders who shot down ten aircraft between the eleven of them. The remaining thirty, low on fuel and broken turned towards Iceland to seethe in the loss of their carrier. The second battle of the Atlantic was over and the Americans had knocked out the European Navy in less than an hour.


	15. Who Dares Wins

"So what we have here is…" Diego muttered to his aide. He came to survey it personally. The flames could be seen for miles, someone had thoughtfully reported it in. The house fires had finally been doused, not after most of the building had been destroyed however and the once cool blue of the European Army Leopard was now simply a jet black of scorch and fresh ash. The bodies had been painstainkingly recovered.

"most of the bodies are damaged beyond any forensics." The aide checked her clipboard again. "fire damage and the high pressure nozzles from water cannons have deterred any of our efforts to determine causes of death although there are a few clues." She flipped through her notes.

"As you can see, the Leopard is at a very askew angle and the garage door is rather crumpled, leading us to believe that the men crashed into the garage at high speed. This is supported by the fact that alcohol has been determined to be in their possession." Diego nodded, mentally assuring himself to enforce tighter disciplines about this sort of thing. Soldier's drinking on duty was unavoidable, but drinking while driving –and by elite paratroopers no less- was inexcusable.

"The two people living in this house- both aged in their sixties- appear to have both been in the garage when the vehicle crashed; although the bludgeon and crush indications on their chests may have been caused by the high pressure firefighting equipment. And the resulting explosion of this house happened when a grenade touched off the boiler for the heating system resulting in a fire that spread throughout the house. That is the general concensus on this." The aide finished, but had a look on her face that made Diego ask about it.

"This concensus " she responded. "Is disproved by two facts." She flipped a page and showed the smiling face of a pretty blonde woman- not a woman an adolescent. "This is the couple's daughter Vigdis, this is a photo of her taken three years ago for state reasons and she was not present with the family despite confirmed reports that she lived with them. Second are these." She went over to the forensics table and held up small pieces of lead, scorched black twice by the firing of the bullet and by the fires inside the house. "This is fragmented 6.4mm round used both by American and our special forces, now while I have not been able to determine from who's weapon this has been fired from, I am tending to lean towards our own."

"Hypothesize." Diego ordered.

The aide thought for a moment. "I believe that our comrades here arrived at this house drunk- maybe they took a wrong turn- and crashed, when the family came out to see the nonsense, they killed the old couple. The girl somehow killed these men and then cooked off the boiler to make it look like an accident."

"A nineteen year old girl taking on special forces?" Diego scoffed. " Do not fool around with me corporal, I know my men and women."

"Excuse me sir. The girl has been known to have a rather aggressive streak and she participates in mixed martial arts fighting and shooting. Her late father apparently wanted her to be very independent."

Diego stroked his goatee. It was rather plausible, and it gave him an excuse to send his troops out on larger patrols, even if it did seem extensive just to mobilize the entire foot company to find one madwoman. He knew that there were Americans on his Island and he had to eradicate him. So far higher echelon had prevented the resources to find them, he would take this opportunity to do so. And it was merely a matter of taking this excuse and filling out the proper paperwork to make the beauracratic weenies happy. They would notice nothing wrong unless he sneezed on the writing.

"Good work Corporal." He patted her head. "I will be back at the barracks, you may continue your report when you are finished." He snapped a crisp salute then turned back toward his transport where he mentally planned out the circle of patrols he would use to sniff out the enemy commandos.

* * *

They woke up to screams-then roars. Dean was up already (he'd always been a light sleeper) and snapped his MR-C up to train on threats. The person screaming was Vigdis and she was howling in Icelandic uncontrollably shaking and screeching so loud Dean was sure a deaf person asleep would wake up. The roaring was overhead- afterburner lights flickered over and off to the east where running lights of fighter planes touched down in pairs on the tarmacs.

"Sanchez- get on the horn and talk to Doghouse!" he barked and practically leaped on Vigdis and clamped a reassuring arm around her and a strong hard hand over her mouth.

"Vigdis you are going to shut up and shut up now!" he hissed "Or you are going to get us all killed do you hear me?" her eyes were darting up down left right, she was in shock. Dean slapped her. "Look at me!" he commanded and stared into those icy blue eyes. "look at me!" the eyes finally settled on him.

"You are going to be fine." He said with all the compassion he could manage at this time. Sanchez had finally gotten a hold of Doghouse and was holding a loud conversation. "Its all over, its okay."

She jabbered something in her language then switched as she sobbed-"my parents-they-they-"

"They're gone. I know honey, it hurts." Honey, it slipped out of Deans mouth before he could stop it.

"And you-you-"

"I killed the men who killed them yes."

"You save me." Vigdis finished and swallowed, still teary eyed and red faced in the sunrise. "You save me."

What was he supposed to say to that? Sure? Yes I did? Dean couldn't figure out but for some reason it felt very right to be holding her like this. Not that anything could come of it, she was a civilian he was a SEAL. And he was on the job, he couldn't forget that. Sanchez coughed politely, Dean looked up without letting go.

"Guess what? Score one for the US Navy we smashed their fleet just an hour ago!" Sanchez beamed.

"What?" Wong asked.

"2400, we hit their carriers and sent every flat top to the bottom, all their fighters are landing here."

"Hell of an air cover." Dean said.

"And its not over yet, the British are going to be dropping troops to help us out here. And lopping off the occasional fighter that gets in our way-"

The rest of the report was drowned out by the scream of a low flying fighter overhead-grey and green to match the surrounding landscape but as it climbed and loosed a pair of missiles Dean made the outline of an F-35 and the bullseye symbol of the RAF on its twin tails. "Holy shit!" Dunn yelled over the din as two more followed it in. the radio started barking again- Dean reluctantly but quickly released his hold on Vigdis and dived on to the speaker-

"-eat give us your current position _now_ Greyhound." The voice was british, Dean grew suspicious.

"Sender on this net-identify. Sierra Echo." Dean barked into the mike.

"Alpha Lima. We are Kennel to you. Again give us your current position _now_."

"this is Greyhound we are reporting from Hill-78 A, and things are absolutely terrible."

"Copy that Greyhound, keep your heads down we're rolling in air strikes but watch the skies. Out."

Dean shut off the radio as two aging RAF Rafaels dived in low and dropped cluster bombs on the surrounding area thumping the area with explosions. Dean hoped Vigdis could handle the chaos, it certainly was Deans first time so close to air strikes that he could feel the heat on his face from a good four hundred yards away. He heard the buzz of a propeller craft and then the screech of a jet intake that told Dean a VTOL dropship was heading in and that meant _friendlies_.

The RAF Osprey bounced over the hill and idled to a hover twenty feet above the SEALs with two more Rafaels streaking overhead and stacking to offer it protection. Fast ropes were thrown out and figures rapelled down and took covering positions. Six well camoflauged soldiers hit the ground and signaled for the VTOL to lift off which it did soon. Dean waved for it to stop so it could retrieve Vigdis but the Osprey turned before he could hail it. The british troops ambled over and nodded.

"Nichols." The leader, a man in his young twenties with a beret cocked at a jaunty angle nodded. "Sergeant."

"First lieutenant Dean." Dean nodded. "glad you're here."

"Glad you started the war for us." Nichols grinned and hefted his L-85C- a smaller caliber special forces variant of the standard British rifle. "shall we finish it?"

"Who are they?" Vigdis asked as she climbed up from her place-the british snapped their weapons up and trained on her simultaneously.

"Easy!" Dean panicked "Easy, hold your fire she's a friendly."

"Where did you pick that up?" Nichols demanded.

"She was getting raped" Dean whispered "I couldn't just leave her."

"Bloody cowboy!" Nichols hissed. "you'll excuse me leftenant for mentioning that she'll be a burden for us." Dean took a quick look at his shoulder badges and noted the winged sword patch under and motto under it: _Who dares wins._

These were British Special Air Service Commandos and every bit as professional as his men. "She comes with us," Dean stepped his foot down. "that's final."

Nichols let out an exasperated sigh. "Well we got new orders for us then, we head for our original objective and observe from there. Still avoid contact but if we come across a SAM or artillery battery we are ordered to neutralize it." It was what commandos did, raiding behind enemy lines to disrupt formation and strategies. He added "and if the girl knows how to keep quiet and stay down when the shooting starts then it won't be too much of a snag."

"I know how to shoot." Vigdis piped up causing all the heads to turn in unison. "My father teach me how." At the mention of her father, he lip began to tremble slightly-Dean was over there in a heartbeat, pressing her face against his chest, not affectionately but more to muffle any more noise it might cause. The fighter jets roared overhead one of them rolling three times possibly out of sheer joy from the destruction he had caused. The british were like that. They had only arrived for five minutes to wreak their havoc and now they were gone like ghosts in the mist. The commandos would have to disappear as well.

"Alright," Dean said when he felt Vigdis was finished. "Lets grab our stuff and hustle on. Its maybe a seventy miles over rocky terrain and so we should get there by tomorrow morning if we move fast."

"Very good sir." Nichols nodded probably very happy that this American wasn't all cock and bull and cocky confidence. Dean gestured for his men to follow and in ten minutes they were moving. The only one unburdened by heavy loads was Vigdis. But a SAS corporal gave her his P90 submachine gun that he carried for backup. Vigdis had a look of a woman who wouldn't let anything or anyone endanger her again. Dean was sure he would be there to help that.


	16. Hunting

There was one flat top left. And it was making noise like a dying cat that sang opera. It was making best speed, or what Toland assumed was its best speed (it could barely make ten knots). And the remaining frigates and destroyers circling around her seemed to him more like vultures around a dying carcass than sentinels guarding her return to port.

Her return to port wasn't likely.

Toland was now jointly operating with two other attack boats, USS Miami and HMS Heron. They were the only three subs in position to begin tracking the remainder of the enemy fleet. After the air battle, the European Navy ad scattered. Many of them heading for Iceland where they would be cut off by a second wave of fighters, the unused Superhornets from Admiral Jammesson had lifted off as the last strikes from the first wave finished. The others had dodged in two directions. Some for the French and Spanish coast where they risked relentless attrition and raids from both the US fleet and the British Air Force. The larger group sprinted towards Norway where they would soon be under air cover. Guarding this carrier seemed to be four frigates and six destroyers. Quite the compliment.

Too bad for them that there were three nuclear attack boats after the wounded quarry.

Toland had developed a new habit of taking ten minute standing naps. He couldn't leave the Conn, not when they were in such a dangerous position and the computer monitors in the action center were quite comfortable for reasons Toland could only assume were due to absolute weariness. But his crew was getting some well deserved rest after a week and a half of frantically trying to sink every ship they could find. Toland would have to put into port soon, he had a grand total of four Mark 48 torpedoes and two Harpoon missiles. He'd have to shoot sparingly and accurately to make the most out of them. His countermeasures had run dangerously low as well, with only four noisemakers left it would make running very hard.

"Conn, Sonar." Williams said and stifled a yawn. "I have a possible submarine on bearing three zero niner. It sounds like an American. Designate Foxtrot one." He said and plotted the contact for Toland to see. That made a total of twelve contacts plotted on the board. One of them was a friendly, God was he close to them! Toland silently wished USS Miami the best of luck. Toland would run cover for them; with his low ammunition and countermeasures he was more of a commodity than an extra player.

"Speed?"

"Blade count sounds like one five knots. I just barely heard him."

Which meant it was possible the others heard him as well. "Periscope depth, up scope and raise mast."

Toland walked over to the periscope and peeked in on the bearing of the enemy fleet. It wasn't good, there were four dots flying in the air darting towards the Foxtrot one contact. They heard Toland's friend. "Four sweeps, energize! And set for condition red! Fire control I want our harpoons loaded and set! Get me one of those frigates!"

His men on fire control were fresh after getting a well deserved six hours of sleep. They worked faster than any other man at their station right now. "Firing solution! Recommend adjust speed to ten knots!"

"Belay that," Toland ordered and kept his eyes on the scope. He wanted to be going fast, the better to attract attention and bugger out. "Adjust firing solution for present course but speed at thirty knots!"

A pause over the intercom as the Principal Weapons Officer noted how much noise thirty knots were generate and just how fast they would be heading towards their enemy. "Aye sir-ready for speed adjustment."

"Make your speed thirty knots, set course zero one five, right standard rudder."

"aye sir, speed thirty, my course is zero one five."

"my rudder is right standard sir."

"I'm going to need one more sweep sir."

Toland peeked through the periscope and noted that now there were three frigates in sight, merely dots on the horizon but they were in sight, meaning USS Chicago was in a very dangerous situation now. "Energize. India search pattern!"

"Firing solution!" PWO shouted from the fore of the ship.

"Shoot!" the submarine roared as its remaining harpoon missiles ejected from the forward firing tubes and raced off into the air, white foam and smoke was all Toland could see through the periscope at the moment-

"Ready for dive sir!" the planesman reminded Toland. Tolands usual strategies had been to shoot and disappear, it was safer for the sub. But unfortunately he needed to draw those helicopters towards him-yes they were breaking off and heading towards the sight of the missile contrails. He was successful but by God they were coming in fast-

"All down on the planes, make your depth six hundred." Toland barked as he snapped the periscope up. "down scope!"

"Sir! Sonar buoys! They have us for sure!" Williams cried out. PWO took the initiative and fired a noisemaker before Toland could even order it. He didn't have time to be proud of his crew though- "change depth to eight hundred all ahead one third. Make your heading three four three, left full rudder."

"Good pump fake sir." Nolan said from Tolands side. Toland jumped bringing a smile to both of them.

"Whats a pump fake?" Williams asked.

"Submarine lets himself get heard by going fast." Nolan explained while Toland walked over to the planesmen and observed his change in depth. "then dives and drops a noisemaker to generate a lot of noise. That masks his escape, then he breaks for the target, diving under the thermal layer and gets ready for another shot."

"Torpedo in thewater! Fish bearing one seven five-wait" Williams interrupted "Its going after the noisemaker!"

"See?" Nolan laughed. "the Pump Fake is an old Russian move, their Victor III captains loved to do that." Toland ordered his ship to level out then cut his engines to station keeping to become completely silent and to let his hearing conditions regenerate. It would be hard to hear under the thermal layer but not impossible. Foxtrot one had disappeared from the scopes, that was good but Williams reported at least six contacts above them, destroyers and frigates. Toland accelerated to ten knots before the ships could really detect him. He'd done a fine job of attracting their attention alright. If he counted right, there would only be four ships to protect the carrier and none of their ASW helicopters. Williams reported hull popping noises above, a ship was burning. Well, that scratched one of the ships off the list.

Toland ordered Chicago in at all ahead two thirds, maybe he'd get a shot at that carrier after all.

* * *

The air base had been ravaged. General Weber seethed inwardly. The fighters from the Naval battle group landed in pairs at a time, the ones who came earliest were luckier, the hectic landings were very ably organized by his experienced flight control groups. The second group was unlucky enough to be caught up in a second dogfight on their return leg. More than half were forced to eject from their craft-the grounds were so rocky and the strips could only handle four planes at a time (in which the planes would be sitting ducks for eager british pilots) and in the mean time, the skies were so crowded that Weber couldn't even scramble his own fighters to protect the returning ones for fear they might be shot at on the runway. The result had been a master of confusion resulting in forty losses of friendly aircraft and several of the valuable SAMs and now the Southern radar tracks. Iceland was slowly being wittled away. His counterpart at Rejavik field had fared little better, British raiding F-35s had taken to engaging his patrol fighters and had become very adept at dodging under radar coverage to loose their missiles and flit away before a counter could occur. He had half of the Naval squadrons refueled immediately and sent north to Rejavik to bolster his numbers. Weber could spare them, he now had well over sixty aircraft to defend the southern island. The supplies from Norway were finally reaching him with the Norwegian logistics commander using a new tactic for which British had no counter for. Small air convoys spread out, maybe one cargo plane and a single escort each, had resulted in Weber finally receiving three quarters of the supplies he had requested (and he always requested for more than he actually needed).

If he played his game smart, he and Diego had enough fuel ammunition and armaments to withstand a siege for maybe two months, well enough time for Europe to invade Britain and secure assets there to lock down Iceland. But he hoped Diego would play his game smart. He was becoming obsessed with the commando team he was sure was on the island and his troops with nothing to keep them occupied (save for the past air raids which sent them scurrying for cover with nothing to do anyway) were becoming unruly. Weber as commander in chief of the Iceland forces had passed dozens of civilian complaints down to his secretaries to palm off to even smaller people. If Diego could not control his troops in peace, how could he do so in battle?

Weber couldn't even count on the Naval assets any longer. They'd been smashed as the pilots had told him. The submarines were probably being withdrawn to defend the coasts and now the only link Iceland had was with Norway and that would probably be closed off once the British got an idea of what was going down. It was a hopeless situation. Weber shook his head. He was from Europe. He had a duty to his mother country and to the men and women who served him. He would lead them to victory, surrender would be no option for them. He called Diego into his office, he'd have some options to discuss with him in defending the Island.

The Americans were familiar with guerilla style conflicts, he wondered how they would fare against a guerilla force with well trained soldiers in the field.

* * *

The flotilla heading for Iceland numbered sixteen in all. Twelve frigates and four destroyers had their radars energized and their SAMs and AA unmasked at all times, they had beaten off two American attacks already that had killed four ships. These Americans were relentless, every two hours a new raid, those Superhornets were able to launch missiles well beyond SAM coverage and now they were paying for it! European Fighting Vessel Le Monde and her captain had made his ship de facto flag and ordered his ships close in together. The third raid was already underway, sixteen F/A-18 Superhornets blipped on their radar and two minutes later thirty two missiles streaked towards them. Le Monde ordered his ships to shoot off their countermeasures and break rapidly. The Air to Surface missile radars suddenly saw one massive target split into sixteen which confused the programming greatly. Most immediately lost tracking and slammed into the water far too short or well over the target. Ten missiles locked in and started their Mach 6 approaches. Enemy fire brought their number down to four which struck three targets. One was immediately sunk, one missile had exploded EFV Santa Muerte's bridge and holed her port side a second later. A second, EFV Prussia was damaged so greatly, the missile had locked onto the destroyer's drive trail and hit the rudders and engines crippling it so that it couldn't even make five knots, it was scuttled by her own crew. The other two received minor damage only and could still keep up with the fleet. It was in this state that the fourteen remaining ships of the European Task force chugged into harbor where one nervous captain landed his ship on a sandbar and rocks tearing a massive rent on the starboard fore end and several others so weary they let the local tugboat captains guide her in for them.

Eighty miles out, the commander of the Eagle Eye smiled and noted the position on his map, then turned and headed back towards the fleet. They were all tired but the ones being kept up would be the Europeans, not American.


	17. Iowa

Four fish had been fired in a spread that boxed the Carrier in and sunk it. Score one for HMS Heron. Now came the dangerous part of getting back out. The nine enemy craft swarmed over them. Toland was now well rested as were the best of his crew, they went through their motions beautifully dodging three torpedoes on sheer maneuvering alone. USS Miami sunk a frigate before getting away clean and now it was Toland guiding the HMS Heron out. They danced between the Sonobuoy lines dropped by the European forces now hellbent on taking revenge for their last carrier. And it was all going well until-

"Transient Transient!" Kennedy barked "Torpedoes in the water bearing zero four five crossing starboard to port-two fish sir! Contact probable submarine designate Sierra one and evaluate as European Delta class attack boat!"

"Snap shot!" Toland snapped immediately. A submarine here! He had no clue they could get in so close too! Two torpedoes had been fired at Heron which Kennedy now reported as diving deep and firing a pair of noisemakers between itself and the torpedoes which were wire guided. "Sonar go active! Two Fish PWO!"

Two deep gongs reverberated the hull and the water around USS Chicago as she blasted her acoustics and waited for a response-

"Got him! Range three thousand!" PWO shouted "Set! Fire sequence one and three! Firing Solution!"

"Match generated bearings and _shoot_!"

"Fire one Fire three!" two torpedoes left the Chicago their wires immediately cut and Chicago sprinted in the opposite direction of Heron's bearing, hoping that he remembered where the rendezvous was. Toland went over to the Sonar station to watch the progress of his own two torpedoes. This would force the enemy Delta sub to cut his wires and maneuver, and it was a beautifully aimed shot as well. He privately commended the PWO, his torpedoes had lead the target perfectly and the enemy delta could see that. The two bright yellow lines representing his own torpedoes began to track the red enemy. Red lines, enemy torpedoes tracked Heron but then suddenly Heron disappeared, leaving a bright red noisemaker in the knuckle of water that masked her disappearance.

"Pump fake." Kennedy whispered and turned his attention towards his own torpedoes. Toland quickly got onto the intercom and ordered the ship to slow to one third and dive to eight hundred feet. "hit!" Kennedy shouted. "That's a hit, fish were on target!"

"Great shot PWO!" Toland nodded.

* * *

It was a much bigger raid than before, probably because the port was relatively well defended. There were twenty four Hornets charging in, two hours since the last raid. The port commodore radioed Keflavik which scrambled fighters ten minutes later. The major in charge of the interceptor wing was aggressive, ever since the last air battle he had seen what a cautious defense could accomplish: forty fighters destroyed and forty European souls erased from the face of the earth. He had not been at the base at the time, caught off guard when he went to visit a lady friend whom he had the mind to maybe marry one fine day.

But at the same time, he had also heard of stories of how Americans laid traps for their opponents who were too aggressive in their tactics. He split his wing up, twenty fighters to intercept the Hornets before they got in range and another half behind, these would be laser craft. He would send the first group in, standard fighters with missiles, and when the British and Americans jumped them with stealth fighters, they'd reveal themselves to be decimated by his lasers. Satisfied with the plan, the forty fighters lifted off and the orders were relayed confidently.

The Americans were slightly nervous. They hadn't had time to resweep the port so they wouldn't know of any SAMs and by all means the Europeans weren't stupid, they'd try to engage the F/A -18s before they got into range with their missiles which could very well outrange SAMs. And while they were carrying their missile compliments they would be weighed down and completely useless in a dogfight, meaning that they would have to jettison and waste several million dollars in armaments just to get away. It was a very frustrating situation. But twenty thousand feet above them were 8 F-35 lightnings off of Ireland, pilots who were fresh and eager as all Irish usually were when they weren't drunk. And just two thousand feet below the Irish were six Bobcats of Wild Card Squadron. A second raid group was just behind them, another twenty four Hornets and several british Rafael escorts who had just topped off their fuel tanks from American tankers.

"check in." Major Asakura said in a confident voice that didn't at all match her demeanour. It was a bad thing to be flying, she knew she was bait for the stealth interceptors. If they managed to hit ships at all it would be magnificent.

"Ghostrider check."

"Hunchback check."

"Match book check."

"Wild Card check."

The other squadron leaders sounded off. "Hey hit the camera." She told her backseater Radio Intercept Officer, Lieutenant Mathews. Mathews flipped her a switch and activated the long range camera and laser range designator underslung in the cockpit and magnified to full zoom.

"Tallyho," she said calmly. "Looks like twenty bandits twelve o'clock level."

"Jolly," she activated the channel to speak with her Jolly Rodgers. They had long range Quarrels just for this purpose. "twenty bandits, dead ahead. Weapons free." And with that crisp order, Mathews and the other RIOs in every hornet flipped their high energy air search radars and painted the enemy fighters with locks, they were just getting into effective range now-Asakura heard the enemy trying to get locks as well-"Fox three!" she shouted as she got her lock and flipped her Air to Surface missiles on to get locks as well. Twenty air to air missiles streaked out in ragged sequence from her fighters, which was returned seven seconds later by the opposing force.

"Shit." She said and launched her missiles without waiting for a proper lock. They had reached the edge of their radar tracking so the missiles would have a small chance to hit. Free of their payloads, the hornets rapidly turned and hit afterburners firing chaff the whole way. Four of her Jolly Rodgers were shot down but Ghostrider two saw six of theirs hit. Asakura turned her group around to reengage just as the Ghostriders were ordered in as well. The Irish fighters got their shots off first, eight missiles streaked out, four found targets and they sent the group scattering. The Hornets of Hunchback vectored in as well, they hadn't fired their missiles yet and were risking getting locks to get closer to the ships-

It was all flashes of blue-and just for an instant that Asakura almost thought she was imagining things but the score of fiery deaths in the air in front of her told her-

"Lasers! They've got Lasers, second group behind the first!" she shouted and ordered Mathews to seek them out.

"Tallyho, second group is eighty miles out." She said sourly, out of range of missiles and if Asakura tried to get her group in they'd be slaughtered. Frustrated she ordered a group scatter and regroup at an area far away. The others would have to deal with them.

* * *

It came as a shock for the strike commander. Yes he'd expected losses from the first wave but never from his stealth fighters, and certainly not so quickly. The Irish fighters hadn't known what hit them. It was a horrible way to die. The squad leader of the Wild Cards immediately took the initiative, ordering a break by pairs and scatter then engaging the enemy laser platforms.

The strike commander meanwhile shot off a warning at the second wave of fighters, the six Rafaels of match book responded immediately, hitting afterburners and illuminating their air search radars.

The two plane elements climbed higher-Hailstorm lasers had a three hundred and sixty degree field of fire but they couldn't track upward. They spotted enemy craft and fired at a range of forty miles.

The response was an immediate scatter by the leading elements that had been locked on and a well disciplined nose up by their rear eschelon to bring their lasers to bear on a target. But the Wild Card leader had chosen his attack well, he was coming in with the sun behind them, blinding the TV camera operators. The bobcats screamed in on the Hailstorms and ripped into three of them with their cannon on the first pass, then they split. It was a masterpiece of confusion. It was as if WWI dogfighting style had been what was fought with ever since it was invented. Pilots craned their heads high low, searching for prey as they pulled punishing six G and above turns to bring their weapons in line with targets. The bobcats had an easier time, being less numerous and in the middle of a target rich environment. Two more hailstorms exploded first. Then Wild Card four took a clip on his left wing which sent him careening down to the water where he recovered, leveled out and took a deflection shot at a low flying Euro. The British Rafaels dived into the mix, flipping their jamming pods on after volleying missiles which scored an additional four kills. The European fighters were in deep trouble. They had discovered that their lasers, while excellent long range weapons lacked the capability the Americans 20mm Vulcan had at such close range. The bulbous laser turret at such close range was rather unwieldy and was hard to track on a target. Nevertheless, two Rafaels and a bobcat were shot down next. The dogfight boiled as the strike commander radioed for reinforcements and a second strike while he called his own hornets off.

* * *

The Irish Navy was steaming underway already. If it could be called a Navy anyway, they had a very kindly agreement with the British Navy and their waters were a United Kingdom proctorate. Even so, six destroyers, eight frigates and a cruiser drove south to link up with a second American battlegroup. This one was much smaller and less valuable than the Carrier group but its destination was very much the same. Admiral Jamesson's plan was to send his carriers to merely eliminate the air power on the island then leave one carrier to support their efforts while the rest steamed towards Europe to support the invasion of the mainland.

This second task force had been secretely activated at the beginning of the war, and Central Intelligence Agency Operatives worked long and hard to keep this secret at bay, the European spy satellites had hopefully no idea for what was in store in this group and would probably have no known countermeasures.

It had been refitted and retooled, it was modernized and ready for war again.


	18. Rising Horizon

"Shit…" Trip whispered.

"Exactly." Wong agreed. Dean checked his map one more time to make sure _that_ was the right hill. It was. They were supposed to take an Oscar Papa (observation post) on that hill. And they'd made it this far only to be stopped by the fact that it looked like almost the entire European army was camping there.

Sergeant Nichols raised the satellite radio to his lips receiving a hiss and a shake of Deans head in reply. They were so close, maybe two kilometers from the Euros, that they might pick up the transmission. And encrypted or not, it wouldn't be hard to triangulate their position.

"I think we got at least fifty tangos on that hill." Sanchez reported. "and at least four IFVs." And that was just what they could _see_. How many were on the other side of that hill? They hadn't heard any helicopters but Cheetahs were supposed to be notoriously quiet. And Tanks. They weren't equipped to take on a fully armored charge, not with only AT-10s.

"we sit tight here." Dean ordered. "take up positions, make sure everyone can see each other, and for God's sake _stay out of sight._" He picked up his binoculars again, running the worst case scenario through his head and trying to think of ways for his team and Vigdis to get out alive.

* * *

"there!" he saw it again, the sergeant saw the flash of something metallic on the hill two kilometers off.

"What?" the Lieutenant in charge asked.

"There is something shining that way, the sun is glinting." The Spaniard replied.

"a shiny rock." A rock was tossed at the lieutenant who ducked and glared at the sergeant who had far more combat experience than him. The sergeant had been pulled off of special forces work on the eastern front against Russia. "how shiny does that rock look to you sir?" the sergeant asked sardonically.

"Sergeant I know you have at least three months more combat experience than I," the French lieutenant said, "but understand that you are a goddamn sergeant and I am your _Fucking_ Officer!"

"The wonders of which how you became so." The Spanish sergeant muttered to his comrades in his native tongue receiving smirks from his squad.

"It could just be litter," a young Italian man suggested, "spent casings from a patrol." It wasn't even a secret that patrols often shot those mountain goats and puffin things out of boredom. Puffins in particular were nice sport around here and the Italian was itching to try it as well.

"then why does it keep on flashing on and off?" the Sergeant hissed. "permission to investigate?"

The Lieutenant really wasn't having that great of a day, two of the IFVs had broken down while they were attempting to assemble a mobile radar sight up on this hill and to make matters worse he hadn't completed much of his language courses so the men under his command were able to communicate in their tongues without their officer being able to understand. It was a horrible breakdown of military discipline and the Lieutenant felt he could be rid of one more problem for today.

"granted." And waved the Spanish Sergeant away.

* * *

The air battle had finally turned in the Americans favor, heavy diplomatic pressure on Greenland's government finally caved them in, and while they were not officially at war against the European Federation, they did allow the United States to use the air bases located on their island against Iceland, and within minutes of this happening (USAFNOCOM had shot off a message putting the pilots on the island at full readiness) Air Force Lancers were lifting off with old F-15E eagle multipurpose attack fighters of the Maine Air National Guard as escort. They pinged the west Iceland radars two hundred miles out and flight controllers at the station ordered the European air group to break off. The Major in charge of Iceland's air force all but refused that order, ignoring it and hoping to site a stressful situation preventing him from complying, he was already _in_ a goddamn dogfight.

It probably wouldn't be a lie, Hornets Rafaels and Bobcats were mixing it up against his fighters who were not so good at close range. The Major was flying a hailstorm that was equipped with two short range heat seekers in addition to his laser. One missile had already been expended the other was attempting for a lock. He was right behind one of those F-19s, the newest American fighter that had disrupted his formation earlier. The pilot was good, diving then rolling to the right which was a difficult maneuver to follow because it was done with such suddenness but the Major was an excellent veteran pilot. His missile finally achieved a lock on the near invisible fighter just as his own lock warning triggered as a hornet came in from the upper left and fired a missile. He triggered his last missile and howled to the sky as he saw it go straight up the afterburner and explode. The other missile exploded barely ten feet from the bottom of his hull. As the plane disintegrated under him the Major pulled his ejection lever as his RIO did behind him. With their duty finished, the Major hoped his pilots would be able to cope without him.

* * *

"I got movement." Wong whispered through the com, "ten, counting ten tangos heading right towards us."

"On target." Sanchez replied.

"Weapons tight." Dean belayed. They would have to hope that these people would just miss them. But if they were coming right towards the hill they were on, it wasn't much hope. Still, better to take them out when they got in very close.

"Moving to the contact point _sir._" Nichols said and gestured for his men to follow while his two long riflemen slipped their ghillie suits on and disappeared into the brush.

"What is going on?" Vigdis asked.

"They might have found us honey." Dean shushed her with a gesture of his hand. "If they start shooting, I want you to-"

"no, I stay here. Safe with you." Vigdis looked at him with wide eyes. Shucks, what was he supposed to say to a look like that? Dean could only nod.

"There! There _is_ someone on that hill!" The Lieutenant had finally gotten bored enough to look at their target with binoculars and what he saw in flashes of movement were at least a dozen individuals, and they were dispersed very well around the terrain, almost completely encircling the sergeants position and they also had the high ground. "Radio the sergeant and tell him he's walking into a trap!" he shouted at the radio operators behind him. "Get those vehicles moving to them and radio command, we have contact with enemy forces! Get the mortar up!"

The men jumped to it, but Colonel Diego back at the base already had his hands full with black shapes that had been spotted on the horizon.

* * *

It hadn't been since the 1990s that the ship had been in service, and it had to be refitted and modernized for that equipment as well. It was a ship of history and one of the largest non carrier craft the United States had ever built. The biggest guns in the US Navy and the best missiles had been outfitted on her as well. And while her crew, her captain and her technologies were almost all new, she was a ship of the old sort and with plenty of history behind her.

The battleship USS Iowa and escorts steamed into view of Iceland, the Merchant Vessels and Marine Amphibious Units already in place and preparing to disembark their Joint Strike Force units. Air superiority in the east had been won and now the invasion was underway. A quick sweep of the Island by F-35 E Queers had mapped out artillery SAMs mobile radars foot patrols and the local area. All of this was networked back to the fleet where the Commodore in charge relayed information to the Captain of USS Iowa. Tomohawk missiles that cruisers and submarines were equipped with could be countered with SAMs and while there was a method for taking those out, why would they waste valuable lives and men? They could block missiles, they could not however block a fragmenting artillery shell fired from the new railgun systems integrated into Iowa's 9 massive 16 inch guns. It could have been fired from well over the horizon, 300 miles away the range was supposed but at such close range Artillery support would be instantaneous, with less than a second's delay from the rounds leaving the tubes to them reaching the targets and exploding with devastating effect. The enemy would be receiving the sharp end of this stick soon. The Captain ordered her ship to turn and unmask her batteries, all nine of her guns would be aimed at Iceland in a full broadside. The first Goshawk VTOLs, Blackfoot gunships and Landing craft ranging from amphibious powered Fastback IFVs to hovercraft that skimmed over the water made way towards Iceland to disgorge the first wave of American troops.

The only thing General Weber could do now was radio Norway and Sweden for Reinforcements, his air force had been completely destroyed by the combined forces. It was as he predicted, if he didn't get reinforcements he would simply lose, the Americans who controlled the Seas could reinforce at will.

"General!" Colonel Diego marched into the flight control tower where Weber had been meditating on his defeat. From here he could see the first invading troops heading towards Iceland. It would all be over soon.

"yes yes I know." Weber nodded but gestured to the video feed to show them that the satellite and communications were down. "They've cut us off, but I managed to get into contact with Norway, and they will send what air assets they can this way."

Diego nodded. "Tell them to attack their Landing units."

"They will want to go after the carriers colonel." Weber shook his head. "Such a threat cannot-"

"then tell them that their Carriers cannot take Iceland from us but their _fucking troops can!"_ Diego shouted. "General I request permission to position my troops on the mountain to better engage my foe. The positions there will have cover and high ground and put the Americans at a distinct disadvantage. My artillery can rain fire from these positions and the SAMs and Radar will have better coverage there."

Weber was a general of the Air force but because he was in charge of the defense of Iceland he let Diego do his job. It was merely formality that the Spaniard came to him anyway. The black ships on the horizon…there were so many…

* * *

"Shit I think they spot us…" Dean muttered to himself as he locked eyes with the Lieutenant on the hill who was also peering through binoculars. He looked down his hill, the enemy paratroopers were spread out more and no longer advancing. "Everyone have a target?" he asked over the radio several confirmations. "Alright, light 'em up. Weapons free!" and the men around him sprang to life firing a flurry of shots just as the first mortar shell rained down on their position exploding half a kilometer away from Deans position. The euros at the bottom of the hill ducked behind their cover and returned fire. The battle was joined.


	19. Hit them Hard and Fast

Diego was in his Command Vehicle's hull, armored heavily but it could not move very fast. Troops were racing towards the mountain which he couldn't pronounce. He had quickly renamed it Mt. Moor and the first artillery units were requesting permission to fire at the enemy ships. Diego finally gave up on trying to get to the mountain and ordered it to be parked in the suburbs where it would be safe even from precision guided bombs. The Americans would not dare shoot where they knew Civilians were. Satisfied, he ordered his UAV to be launched where it would begin detailing the battlefield for him and provide fire information for his comrades manning the SPHAT vehicles. A UAV was already in the air however.

A US Navy UAV nicknamed the "flying fish rotored into position six and a half thousand feet above Keflavik where its powerful Infrared heat cameras spotted the masses of troops moving from the base to the mountain, then it spotted the artillery units deploying there. The heavy mounted guns on the backs of European trucks rose to the sky as if in homage to a god and turned towards the port where the Joint Strike Force troops were beginning to make their first landings.

The Operator of the Flying Fish quickly notified his commander and fired an Infrared laser at the Artillery pieces which mapped their position and windspeed which was then sent down to fire control.

* * *

"Fire mission!"

The gun operator set his sights on the artillery units far away and counted maybe twelve of them. Lots of damage for the boys trying to take that island. "Designate coordinates Three Zero Two as Killbox one alpha, ranging shot!" the loaders below decks heard the order and shoved the explosive shell up the brass stamped tube and hit the switches to load a single heavy round into one of the guns, the same thing happened at the other two turret stations. Once the two hundred pound shell had been loaded, the fire control officer flipped a switch to spool up the magnetic generators of the Railgun system. Railguns were the newest toy in the US arsenal, using magnetic accelerators to "throw" rounds at such velocities that they traveled near the speed of light. They were already integrated on things as large as the Kinetic weapon platforms ("rods from God" many people called them) and even systems as small as Fastback IFV 20mm cannons. There was no choking smoke of gunpowder, merely the flash as all the electromagnetic energy was focused down the barrel and expunged into the air. I was at least as bright as a sun every time a railgun shot.

"Gun ready!" the petty officer called.

The operator squeezed the trigger and the first volley from the guns of the USS Iowa since 1992 was fired. The three heavy shells, only a third of Iowa's main firepower, slammed into the top of the mountain less than a second later causing a small avalanche and earthquake for those in the immediate vicinity. The operator of the Flying fish could actually see the artillery officers on the mountain stumble as rocks and gravel cascaded down on them. But the weapons could still fire and were still a threat.

"Target acquired, Wind ten at zero four seven, Load with cluster munitions: Drop twelve degrees and fire for effect!" the fire control officer barked rapid fire.

The men in the loading docks loaded their air burst high explosive fragmentation shells into the guns, all nine barrels now performing the similar jobs their great great grandfathers and their grandfathers had done all those years before.

"gun ready!"

* * *

He had thought the computer had malfunctioned for a moment, one moment his twelve artillery pieces were there and preparing their first volley, then they simply…glitched out. But when they didn't reappear and he felt an earthquake even through the hull of the command vehicle, Diego shivered. What sort of firepower were the Americans bringing on them? That surely felt like a Kinetic weapons strike. But wasn't he promised that the Americans would be too afraid to deploy a Kinetic Weapons platform overhead- for fear that the Europeans would be able to shoot it down? He couldn't mind that now, his SAM batteries had locked onto their first targets- slow moving Blackfoot gunships and had requested permission to fire. Diego ordered a hold on that and walked over the holodisplay where he could see a map of the entire region. The enemy was deploying in plain sight, Valkyries and Goshawks disgorged troops and fighting vehicles, American riflemen were picking off any of those European troops too slow. He had to rescue them. He called up his cheetah gunships which had already been moved onto the mountain to spool up and take the American flanks while his tanks would about face and form a rear guard. He would have to engage these Americans in the city blocks, they wouldn't dare shoot kinetics with Civilians around. The tightly bunched group of SAMs dissappeared as well. Followed by another earthquake.

"Firelance is go, Firelance is go." the radio officers muttered into their boom mikes. "All units, weapons are free, say again weapons free. Hostiles ID'd by radar scan. Execute operation as according to plan. All elements, be advised there is heavy artillery coming from the mountain, sectors are designated for killboxes. Thunder base is on station now with strike package delta stacked up at level forty. Rules of Engagement option Charlie is now in effect."

Colonel Diaz had to admit, the sheer firepower the refitted Iowa was dishing out was absolutely awe inspiring. It wasn't even an artillery unit in the way it was being used at the moment. She liked to think of it as a sniper rifle. A very very _very big sniper rifle._ Her 12th tactical were spearheading the assault on Keflavik, she had rated the first hovercrafts which had landed two squadrons of tanks which she immediately raced to the airstrip which was her priority target. Resistance here was light, the enemy was pulling back to hole up in a mountain, a pity she wouldn't be able to fight them all. If they decided to dig in there, it would take artillery and bunker busting bombs to smoke them out. The holodisplay in her Command Vehicle "One Shot" did however show her first gunships coming to station, with Viper squadron taking the lead. Her Ghosts, now refitted with proper headgear had swiftly descended into the city via Valkyrie VTOLs and had taken up positions at the television stations and police headquarters first, then moved on to mop up pockets of European stragglers, usually a leopard armored vehicle here and there accompanied by a squad or two of troops which quickly surrendered. Usually.

"Viper is under missile fire. Eyes on designated threat at seventy degrees northwest by west. Evaluate vehicle type Surface to Air Missile." One of the officers reported at the same time the holodisplay flashed the gunships red for "danger". Viper's squadron leader spread his four helicopters out to give room to maneuver, Diaz tapped (well, not really the holodisplay was just a light projection, but it could detect if she "touched" one of her units")the gunships and had them withdraw as she simultaneously ordered the nearest ghost platoon to move in. Bravo platoon, Call sign "Ninja" responded as quickly as their veteran status allowed, with the captain in charge had graduated from West Point and had been a Ghost for almost fifteen years now. He dispersed his men into five man fire teams to give him a wider area of coverage. His Pioneer heavy infantry followed up behind. If there was a counter attack it would be from that direction. She didn't dare push further into the city, not with her lead echelon taking SAM missile fire. She ordered her infantry into the apartment buildings. If there were civilians there, hopefully they would be smart enough to keep their heads down. The riflemen and her missile troops couldn't afford to babysit them. But they were in good enough cover to consolidate against any threat short of a full tank regiment, she put Bushmaster squadron on call just in case, putting them half a kilometer away from the buildings.

The battle for the airfields was turning into quite the slugging match, her two squadrons of tanks had come across heavy resistance, where the Enforcer Paratroopers had dug in. It was like having her troops hands tied. They had to take the field intact so they couldn't risk using their powerful weapons, 120mm smoothbore rail integrated tank guns, grenade launchers, missiles. The Euros had no such inhibition and fired rockets at will scoring hits against her tanks. Two were already down. "Boxcar" and his squadron of Fastbacks were on the scene quickly, freshly deployed from the second wave of hovercraft landings, they raced towards the airfield as Diaz quickly directed two more platoons of ghosts to take it. There was of course already a rifle platoon in position but they were sneaking on the sidelines quickly, exoskeleton powered joints enabling them to move faster than any man could normally run as they headed for the base's satellite uplink. It was under their control a few minutes later, the Europeans had abandoned it in defense of the airstrip.

"Ninja is taking fire." A radio officer called. Diaz slid the display to bring her forward eschelon back to her attention- there had to be the entire European army coming at them! Six Panther tanks traded fire with the well defended American troops to cover another ten Panthers followed by Badger IFVs which had already deployed their infantry. "they are requesting air support now."

"Thunder base" Diaz thumbed the frequency on the display, "This is One Shot, Strike package Delta release authority is granted at grid five Charlie. Be advised this is a danger close fire mission. Cleared for five hundred pound JDAMs." After receiving an affirmative from the strike coordinator, she switched personally to Ninjas network.

"Strike package Delta is on its way Captain, hold tight for six minutes. Mark your targets. Be advised for danger close."

"Yes Ma'am, targets are marked-" there was a pop as the captain left the channel presumably to direct the air strike onto the enemy. On the holodisplay Bushmaster dove in, his four gunships volleying missiles to kill four tanks but immediately received ground fire from the Badgers and were forced to veer off. The European infantry flashing red on her threat display-"Comanche is taking artillery fire!" a radio officer shouted the warning. Her tank squadrons blinked red as they took heavy rounds on the airstrip. Boxcar had disgorged its rifle platoon and they were now moving to support their flank as Banshee, who had seized the satellite uplink a few minutes before, strike the European's rearquarter and meeting fierce resistance. That artillery could end up shredding her troops however and she tasked the Command Vehicle's UAV to find it.

Ninja was now in a heap of trouble, the air strike had flattened the first tanks but had done nothing more than to choke the roads. Most of their problems were coming from Infantry who had taken positions up in the other buildings and were trading fire room by room. Colonel Diaz couldn't do a thing about it, it was all in the hands of the Sergeants and Lieutenants now. She could however direct Steam plant which had just embarked off of his VTOL toward them and that would give them supporting firepower from IFVs and an extra infantry reinforcement on the way.

"Bushmaster reports enemy tanks from the west, they are turning to engage." Diaz followed them on the display-four gunships against at least five squadrons of tanks? No they would run out of ammunition before they could kill them all. But they were the only unit who could deal with them at the moment. Her two tank squadrons had finished at the airfield, letting the ghosts mop up but they were halfway across the city, it would take half an hour to get there. No matter. She tapped the tank squadrons and directed them towards the enemy hoping they could get there in time.

* * *

That mortar was killing them. Whoever was working that thing, Dean had to sourly admit that they were excellent shots. He had already lost four men to mortar fire and it had wounded another two. His men had managed to hold out for about half an hour now. He couldn't believe it, Wong and Trip had died to precise rifle fire from below.

"More coming to flank us leftenant!" Nichols shouted as he popped up from behind his rock and sprayed bullets down the hill. A missile streaked overhead and exploded too high to be of any danger.

"Badger over there!" Sanchez shouted and pointed over the rock he was hiding behind. A storm of bullets whizzed over his head which he returned using his MR-C gun camera. It was great being able to shoot without exposing yourself. Dean was using a gun camera as well, shooting over the cover to place precise three round bursts at the enemy, but he wished the MR-C was steadier when he shot around these corners. It was a very awkward firing position to be shooting from.

Sanchez had the right idea, he was on the horn calling for air support. Even over the local gunfire they could hear the booming retort of heavy naval guns being brought into play. It didn't matter that they could intercept the transmission anymore, he was trying to get much needed help.

Vigdis was holding up well. She wasn't crying or sobbing like Dean thought she would. But she just sat there, her head buried in her knees as she waited for the noise to stop. It probably never would anytime soon.

The camera image that Dean could see wasn't good. There were five European troops advancing slowly up the hill, crouching behind three others armed with their fluorine riot shields. An SAS trooper made the mistake of popping up to shoot them- and subsequently was hit by a taser round fired from the metal boss at the center of the shield. The man went down screeching-the medic was too occupied to help them. The trooper's partner tossed a grenade down the hill at the same time Dean turned the rifle barrel to shoot at them. The grenade forced two of them to scatter, which let Dean wing both of them in a fully automatic burst. The troopers behind them dropped prone immediately. Dean dove as he saw, then felt a 40mm grenade woosh overhead to explode just twenty meters behind him. Another mortar round landed-close this time. It showered Dean with rock chips and soil. It also took the leg off of the only medic. He screamed.

"Thunder base Thunder base!" Sanchez was trying to yell over the Din. It was so loud that he had his hand cupped around the mouth of the headset. "we are on top of the hill, say again do _not _ drop on the hill!" so apparently he had reached air support. Dean almost whooped for joy- but that was killed immediately with the sound of a Badger fired TOW missile shrieking overhead. Dean now understood the phrase "shooting up a storm."

"Marking our position with infrared strobes now!" Sanchez pulled out his marker- usually used to _target_ an enemy. "Make your pass east to west and for Gods sake take out that mortar first-its killing us!"

"Mark our positions! Infrared strobes!" Dean shouted and pulled his own out and dropped it by his feet. Dean hoped the pilots would remember to _not_ drop on the blinking markers now-Dean felt like he was hit by a murderously hard baseball bat in the shoulder. He stumbled down, all he could see was Vigdis crawling desperately toward him…

* * *

The roar of a JSF 35 streaked overhead, two clustermunition canisters exploded two hundred feet above the hill, showering the mortar and the rest of the European troops with high explosive and fragmentation grenades almost wiping out all the troops faster than the lieutenant could see. He was leading his troops up the hill on the front line-as a leader should- and was appalled to see the only tool he had for suppressing the enemy had been wiped out. Well he still had his badgers- he turned and watched both of them explode into flames, a man kicked his way out of the rear hatch screaming as he jumped the cliff and down into the seawater below. The lieutenant lowered his shield to watch in awe as the fast mover turned and angled towards him again. The lieutenant realized that the only way he could survive another pass was to get as close as possible to the enemy where the pilots wouldn't dare to drop so close, so he lead the charge up the hill-

The pilot had slowed his fighter down for this next pass-and the altitude drop allowed him to see black darting figures charging up the mountain that was painted in infrared strobes. He understood that they what they were trying to do. The pilot kicked his fighter into a vertical hover, hitting his afterburners and pulling up at the same time vectoring the fan and jet wash down so that he slowed to a stall in almost a second. Some fancy rudder and stick movement brought his fighter level and enabled him to point at the enemy without breaking from his position. He unleashed a storm of cannon rounds across the ragged enemy line.

The noise was horrible, and Vigdis was now crying. Dean almost wanted to join her but snapped out of it. He had to protect her. He popped up in time to see the F-35 strafe the infantry with its cannon, tearing everything up in its path. He glimpsed maybe six Euros spin or lose limbs as heavy rounds designed to kill armored fighters and vehicles tore into them before flying rock chips lanced up at him with a vengeance. One struck his temple so hard he was forced to the ground and blacked out.

He awoke, he found he couldn't hear.

Vigdis was over him red faced and desperately pulling at him. Blue tracers were still flying overhead. She was screaming something. He couldn't hear. He was dimly aware that something hot was running down his forehead. He couldn't feel his arms or his legs. Soil and sand fell on him, probably the result of a grenade. Vigdis suddenly looked up and was pulled off him, as a figure leaned over, the glare from the sun was too much for him to see.

His hearing slowly returned-

"Are you greyhound?"

"Ye-yeah." He managed weakly.

"Lieutenant Potter, Ghost Recon. You did good Greyhound." The glare faded away and now Dean could see a dark skinned man in full Future Force warrior gear, complete with powered exoskeleton and helmet. He looked more like some sort of robotic astronaut than a soldier but Dean knew this man was just as lethal as him and his SEALs. "Thunder Base, this is Boogey man, we've got the package and ball is rolling. They're coming back to you now." Dean slumped off as he felt himself being lifted onto a stretcher and carried under the rotors of a Goshawk VTOL. Even over the thrum of the propeller blades he could hear Potter rallying his platoon.

"All right Ghosts, SEALs are done here, now its our War!"

"Joint Strike Force - Hit em hard and Fast!" the platoon responded loudly and they charged off toward where the fighting was.


	20. One Shot

The 400 Horsepower plant in the Shwartzkopf Main Battle Tank barely roared over the sound of artillery and missiles tearing up the air as Sergeant Gabriel Willis checked the infared periscope ahead for hostiles. It wasn't an ideal place for a tank battle, the many buildings channeled tanks into fire lanes and numerous intersections were hazardous, a flanking squadron could appear out of nowhere, or even ambushing units whose barrels were sticking just out of the trees, completely masking the enemy that hid behind them but leaving it free to fire. No city fights were not where Tanks should be. But it was where they had to, so said Colonel Alicia Diaz. So Willis lead his four tanks down the narrow road-

"One shot, this is Buffalo." He shouted over the noise and into the boom mike. "Contact front, estimating twelve armored units and assorted infantry."

"Move into engage, " One shot responded immediately. "keep them suppressed on the street. Double Down and Mustang are Oscar Mike. ETA, twenty mikes."

Willis acknowledged the order and patted his gunner Woody on the helmet. "Stop right here Bruce." He ordered his driver who responded immediately. There were six panther tanks moving up to meet him, they had a firing rate advantage definitely. Their auto loaders were faster than his but he had a range and power edge with the integrated railgun system.

"Buffalo Lead to group," he squawked on his squadron channel. "Go for the tanks, cleared hot. Keep them at range, we've got reinforcements coming in twenty mikes."

His three other tanks confirmed the order and Willis flipped the EM filter on his periscope, a new piece of kit that allowed them to "see" the electronic output of a vehicle. It seemed completely useless to Willis at first, but in training he was told it could tell them which tank was handling the most radio, cell or computer traffic, in other words,which one was the leader-

"Target twelve thirty, Tank, Sabot!" he barked the order to Woody who traversed the turret to aim at the enemy panther tank that Willis saw was bathed in a glowing blue for a high EM emission.

"Target acquired!" Woody shouted back after he depressed the thumb trigger to lock the turret on target. It shot a laser range finder, then calculated the wind and spat it back at the inboard computer. All one had to do was keep the crosshairs on the target and the tank would do the rest.

"Fire!" he spat and the tank lurched as a meter long gout of flame followed by the 120mm round exited the barrel. It penetrated well, scoring a direct hit on the turret while punching through the refractive armor coating deployed by the Panther and cooking off the shells inside for a fantastic explosion. Woody stamped his pedal to load up another round and ready the gun. The empty brass shell, still steaming and smelling of burnt…pine? Shot out of the barrel as Wayne, the tank's loader, slammed a fresh Sabot round into the breech, locked it in and respooled the railgun.

"Gun ready!"

"Tank one o'clock!"

"Target acquired!"

"Fire!"

Another booming shot which scored on the tank's treads shredding them but the turret traversed and aimed back to fire. The shriek of a round soaring around them tore through the hull an instant before Buffalo three reported a hit, the crew bailed out. They had three tanks left.

"Evasive Bruce!" Willis shouted and the tank lurched backwards, backpedalling furiously to take cover behind the remains of Buffalo three. Bruce turned the tank perpendicular to the street while Woody took another shot on their original target, which knocked the turret clean off with a HEAT round.

The enemy tanks numbered three, and fired a second volley- _Whang!_ A round bounced clean off the front armor of Willis's tank, slowed down enough by the Schwartzkopf's refractive coating so that the round didn't penetrate- Willis sought the tank that took the shot at them-

"There! Target Tank Eleven o'clock, Sabot!"

Woody cursed as the turret's automated controls fused and furiously turned the manual wheel to traverse the turret. "I'm manual!" smoke billowed inside, Wayne gagged and leaned against the hull, Woody frantically kicked open the bottom escape hatch to let it out. he peered through the scope again- "Target aquired!"

"Fire!"

The Panther fired at the same time they did, and Willis managed to see incendiary orange sparks fly out of the top hatch of their target an instant before an orange explosion filled his periscope view and warped it. The enemy round had been completely destroyed by the refractive coating, but it had been a high explosive and the heat had flash melted the glass coating on the periscope. "Periscope's fucked!" he shouted. "I'm gonna pop the hatch!" Woody didn't hear him, with the help of the barrel mounted fiber optic camera, he could see a couple soldiers poking out of the windows of a building they were pointing at and let loose a burst from the alongside 40mm grenade launcher.

It was even louder out in the open and although Willis's helmet did a great deal to muffle the noise, the din still rang and hurt his ears. He popped up just in time to see a couple windows in front of him shatter into flying glass and dust as the grenades exploded all along it.

"Buffalo, this is Mamba Lead" a voice on the encrypted intercom spoke. "I've got my eagle's coming on your dead six, keep your heads down, Rockets are manual." Willis's escape into fresh air was interrupted so soon. He bid a hasty retreat back under as the roar of a dozen missiles swarmed the air above and cratered the apartment.

"Why didn't they just shoot from range?" Woody asked as he desperately worked the wheel to bring the turret to bear on an escaping Badger. "Hellfire missile can hit at fourteen miles."

"city fight chokes up missile guidance, radar signals bounce all over and confuse the warhead." Willis reasoned and checked the periscope again, still covered in dirt. "and wire guided TOWs could be cut by shrapnel or explosives. Rocket firing packages are the only heavy missiles we can shoot here." As he spoke the gunships wisked overhead engaging with their heavy cannon now, 40mm rounds tearing into whatever targets they might find. Willis wished them luck.

* * *

"Shoulder mount, three o'clock low!" Sergeant Patts shouted from his rear seat, Lieutenant "Duke" Ellington kicked the thrust back on his chopper and angled it up to sharply veer off. The Blackfoot had to be the sweetest chopper ever made. It was light on the stick she seemed to respond to Duke's thoughts instantaneously and the flat out gorgeous reversal climb that Duke had accomplished could only be result of a chopper that flew on sweet melodies alone. And while they were reversing Duke-no it had to be the chopper itself – rolled slightly to the right for the chin mounted 40mm Vulcan turret to angle on the target and fire. A quick burst fired by "Legs" Patts ended their troubles and the SAM veered off sharply where they were a second ago. This was what gunship flying was about, tearing up the ground pounders with rockets and cannon. Man this was a sweet deal.

He turned and saw a few Euros coming out of blackened buildings, weapons dropped and hands raised for surrendering. Well that was the infantry's job, to a helo pilot you didn't surrender. You just died. And there was a column of Leopards that had just arrived on the scene that needed to die. they were all neatly lined up in that straight European way as Duke thumbed the controls to arm his rocket pods and triggered off his second burst. Over a dozen rockets stitched themselves across the column , those lucky or fast enough to bail from their vehicles almost certainly were caught in the resulting fireballs or storms of metal shrapnel.

"Mamba's form up." The squadron leader ordered sharply and Duke hastily complied but not until Legs fired another burst from the cannon presumably to kill another European bastard. "Got enemy bandits incoming from the North, engage with missiles." Legs flipped the switch to set the gunship to AA mode and arm the Pylon mounted Quarrels, four of them.

"Hold her steady." Legs ordered and Duke leveled out – "Got them, make that eight bandits twelve o'clock, cheetah gunships."

"Energize." Duke said as he flipped the air search radar to full power which preambled the firing of their first Joint Standoff Munition, a missile that locked at medium range and could hit both air and ground targets. Cheetahs were excellent against tanks and were fast and nimble or at least that's what the reports said. They also said they were a bitch to maintain, responded too fully to pilot controls (meaning they were in constant danger of losing control) and lack of armor meant they couldn't really take a hit. The first JSM volley lanced off toward the enemy gunships at about the same time they fired the enemy fired their own missiles. The howl of the lock and launch warning rang inside Duke's HUD. Easy Baby, Easy baby, he thought as loudly as he could. Papa's gonna take care of you…he dropped countermeasures and punched the power on the top rotors to elevate so rapidly that it probably would have caused most rollercoaster enthusiasts to lose their lunch, then as he saw the missile continue towards them, at a scant one mile he cut power and dropped like a stone the missile, unable to turn so rapidly passed above them, Legs hooting wildly at the thrill. He was a good gunner and copilot, and skilled enough to lock and fire a second missile during the evasive maneuver. The enemy gunships broke formation, scattering wide as the four missiles tore at them. Not a single one hit, in fact, not a single one even made it halfway toward the target. The missile exhausts suddenly cut and they fell toward the earth dangerous but inert by some-

"Identify Badgers on the street!" Mamba two shouted. "They've got EM weapons! That's how they took out the missiles!"

"Jinxie break right they're going to-" Duke never heard what Mamba Lead was going to say, all of a sudden the radio popped as did much of the sensitive equipment on board, the long range radar, electronic firing sequences. "We're down to guns, rockets and TOWs." Legs reported sourly.

Their own electronics had been shut off by the Badgers and their Electromagnetic weapons. Cheap bastards. They were down to manual stuff, none of their high tech equipment would work – well life was full of hitches wasn't it. A volley of missiles fired from the ground had to be acquired visually, the warnings were offline, but it still gave Duke plenty of time to react, firing another volley of rockets down on the same bearing as he looped the nimble Blackfoot up and around, dancing a pattern that the stupid land based warhead couldn't track. He was surprised to see another missile pass to the right of them-

"Got him, angle down for me!" Legs shouted and Duke complied, bringing the nose down far enough for him to see the cheetah that was closing fast, another missile already fired. Duke hit the countermeasures without thinking and continued his roll into a second loop, he heard the cannon burp to life as the two gunships raced towards each other, the Blackfoot looping in an evasive spiral, the Cheetah on a dead ahead course rolling to track with its nose cannon but its maneuverability hampered by its own design. Their cannon couldn't track but the Blackfoot had no such inhibition. Legs stitched a lovely burst across the entire length of the hull, punching through that weak shit they thought was armored plating and biting into the engines and fuel. The cheetah exploded midair, the back draft hitting the Blackfoot's tail. To Duke it felt as if someone had kicked the helicopter really hard, the tail jumped two meters into the air. Duke immediately knew something was wrong, even without the squawking alarms that usually rang in the air with damage that bad. The explosion probably nicked the tail rotor bad and they were going to start spinning out soon.

"Eagle down, Eagle down!" he shouted even though he knew nobody would hear it. "Mamba four is going down." He angled himself for the flat of the street. The pedals were really fighting him now, he had to stomp hard to keep the helo from spinning out-if only they could get low enough to- a loud bang followed by a violent spin to the right told him the fuel lines toward the end exploded cleaving the tail clean off or something hit them with the same result. Mamba four with Duke and Legs still in it were spinning out of control just above the roof tops. He felt the reverberation of the hull skim over the roof, knocking off chimneys and antennae. He could smell his own sweat nauseating him. He could see the street and the buildings and the sky in a blurr of soft colors.

The ground came up with a vengeance.

* * *

Potter and his Ghost Recon commandos hoisted what was left of the infiltrator team and their lady friend (who insisted that she leave with Dean) back up. They reported to One Shot that "Boogeyman was standing by." The order came quickly.

"Boogeyman, I need your units here." An icon flashed on the Blue Force tracker on the upper right side of his HUD. "You can cut off an enemy retreat here or press into their rear. You'll be unsupported for the moment but I'll see if I can send some Force Recon units your way."

"Glad to know the Marines are here ma'am." Potter huffed as they climbed up the mountain, even with powered armor it was still tough going.  
"They'll be brits Boogeyman." One Shot gave a husky chuckle. "We've got a Royal Marine Amphibious Unit coming on station now. But they've got tanks close air support and lots of manpower. We might need it so be polite."

"Roge-o ma'am." Potter replied and closed the comm. It was at least half a mile to the point they were supposed to hole up in. His Ghost's were ready. "You heard the lady." He said over the platoon channel. "We take and hold here, then we see what we need to do understood?"

"Hard and fast." Sergeant Mackall of second squad agreed. The sound of Iowa's railguns being fired split the air causing Potter to look up at the mountain again to see part of it disappear in smoke and dust followed by the rumbling sound of a small avalanche. Its got to be Hells mountain he thought. He checked the SCAR-HOC rifle cradled in his arms one last time, they were reaching the edge of the city now, a once quiet hamlet that was protected for centuries by nothing more than what looked like a wooden picket fence. The fifty man platoon hopped over that easily. They were inside Keflavik and reached their position quickly. Potter almost radioed in for new orders but then spotted a squat shape in a tight alley, and four other little things around it-

"that's gotta be a command vehicle." Mackall suggested.

"Easy pickings." Another ghost muttered. Potter got on the horn quickly…

* * *

Bringing the fight into Keflavik had helped some. Diego's reevaluation of the tactical situation meant that only a few of his units were caught under the sights of that damn battleship, those were mostly artillery and SAM batteries. Insignificant but damn did he need those! He had a breather from air strikes for the moment as most of the American strike packages had been expended and were being refitted but his units were barely holding on as is. He had dispersed his Paratroopers in the best way they could. By platoons and hiding amongst the buildings. He couldn't win in a straight up fight but it could take weeks for these damn Americans to root out every sniper in this city. Enough time hopefully for Europe to mount a counteroffensive and retake the island. His tank commanders were skillfully maneuvering where they could, volleying off to kill a few before backtracking furiously down the streets to reposition and ambush again. In all, his troops were behaving perfectly.

But they were still losing.

"Senor!" a radio officer shouted, Diego looked up from the holographic plot. "General Weber on the line!"

Diego looked up at the television screen but the officer clarified. "It's a phone call from a civilian number."

"Diego." The voice was husky and tired.

"Weber." Diego replied without removing his eyes from the tactical graph. "Where are you sir?"

"I'm in a kindergarten." Weber chuckled darkly. "they took out the Airfield about an hour ago if you haven't heard."

"I had." Diego groused, panning the map over to the area and gesturing for the call to be traced and placed on the map. The officer in charge hurried to comply the order.

"Then you know the island is lost."

"It is never lost commander."

"then you are a fool." Weber hissed. "As your superior officer I order you to respect the lives of your men and to stand down. We've lost."

"Under the articles of Federation, I deem you unfit to command your forces and relinquish you of your overall command." Diego said flatly. "Your war is over Weber, your noble German blood counts for nothing. Now they will see what a Spanish guerilla can accomplish."

"Die in what way you see fit." Weber said and cut the line. The call had been tracked and the building highlighted in blue- no wonder. He was well within the American lines they were probably raiding the block as they spoke searching for escaped European troops. Treason and Surrendering were the same crime and should be punished severly.

"Send message to all officers." Diego said. "Any officer or trooper who shows lack of courage or feels the weight of surrender should be relieved, either stripped of their title or summarily executed. That is an order."

He returned to the battle, eight cheetah's (call signs Sapphire and Emerald) had cut off an American squadron with the help of the Badgers (call sign Rhine) that were in position. He redirected troops over to that position, perhaps he had found a break in the American lines, the gunships reported all enemy air support neutralized and the tanks that they had encountered were falling back. His own panther's who had engaged those tanks were ordered back in and ordered to hook around to recapture Keflavik.

"There is no way the Americans have had time to consolidate." He personally told the argumentative leader of the Alpine tank squadron. He was complaining that he only had four tanks out of the eight to take that airfield. "you will have support behind you. I'm moving Rhine and Emerald to support and these will be followed by other groups, you won't have to hold for long."

The battle might be swinging his way after all. Diego thought and sat back in his cushioned chair listening to the radio chatter.


	21. Ends and Beginnings

Potter flipped down the EM filters on his HUD- yup there was a lot of electronic traffic going through that, and the drones guarding it should have been a big sign for him as well. He switched to infrared and his HUD immediately began tagging diamonds around hostiles his own eyes had missed.

"That's a full rifle platoon." Mackall said. "Gonna be one tough son of a bitch to kill."

"One Shot, this is Boogeyman." He ignored the sergeant. "Identified enemy command vehicle and marking on Tracker now, requesting immediate support and I mean _immediate_ support if we're going to pop that bitch open."

"Copy that Boogeyman. Strike package Alpha is rolling now with Strike Package Zulu on follow up. Force Recon Elements are moving to your mark now."

Potter thought for a moment after he closed the channel. "We're going to need to bring that sucker out in the open." He told his squad leaders. "Its got too much defilade in there, too much cover otherwise our bombs might not hit it. Here's the plan first squad hook right and take up positions on the intersection, mine the approach and fast." He gestured for them to go and they sprinted down the street. That left one more missile launcher which definitely wasn't enough to take out a command vehicle, which had to be the most heavily armored European vehicle fielded in their army.

"third squad you take the left." That gave them the remaining Javelin, "Same orders as first squad."

"we'll take the center and be sure not to let them through here." He said for his remaining three squads. "Second squad set up mines down the field at the intersection and don't be afraid to lace the sidewalks. When everyone is finished we take positions in the buildings and open fire on my signal got it?"

The Ghosts nodded affirmatives and got to work.

* * *

Colonel Alicia Diaz activated her UAV. "Spotter" lifted off the hull of the JSF command vehicle and into the air where it rotored into position between her forward elements and the airfield. She knew it was a weak point. And she had A squadron of tanks and her remaining rifle platoon ready to plug that up if needed, but she had promised Boogeyman support, plus the brits had landed in force and were supposed to be covering that approach. She couldn't decide whether to deploy her reserves over to Potter and his boys, or to plug the hole until the brits could arrive. It was like having two tempting targets but with only one shot. But she was good at one shot one kills.

Spotter began tagging targets below – four tanks were tearing at high speed (had to be at least fifty miles per hour in a suburb) toward the airfield. The defenses could probably hold off until the brits arrived- no there was a gunship group and transports right behind it. They wouldn't last long against that kind of attack. She tapped the Force recon units on her Holodisplay to switch to their channel. "Boys if you could pick up the pace do it, We've ID'd gunships, badgers and tanks each in squadron strength heading towards the airfield." She gestured for a radio officer to relay that to her men at the port."

"We're trying to move quicker ma'am." The Captain's Scottish brogue was breathless and there was a lot of noise in the background, voices yelling and engines revving. "But the roads are choked with damn civvies trying to get away from the fighting. Give us maybe half an hour to get through the gunk." Diaz exited the channel for a moment and cursed.

"Do what you can captain." She said and tapped both her reserve units and tapped their destination. That should be sent to them now. Both group leaders acknowledged the order and moved immediately.

"Very good ma'am." The Royal Marine captain replied and exited. Diaz recalled Spotter to a more reserved position, she couldn't risk it that far out in the open. But she could however send support. She ordered her drone guards, wheeled robots with twenty millimeter cannon turrets to move to the designated coordinates and hold there. Potter would unfortunately not have those reinforcements. She might even have to redirect one of the Strike packages. The tanks streamed down the road, her drones had taken position, probably wouldn't last even a minute against tanks. The operator sitting next to her typed a command to weave the four drones in an evasive pattern to maybe prolong their existence. The gunships were on them first, both sides trading cannon fire for a moment. Then one of the drones exploded followed by a gunship which had succumbed to a barrage of fire from all four drones. Then another exploded to a tank round- shit.

"Thunder base, One shot I need air superiority packages redirected to Keflavik airspace my troops are getting torn up by those gunships. Redirect strike package alpha to target grid Tango four zero. Now designating Killbox Four Golf."

"One Shot, I can only direct one interceptor group to your station at the moment, the rest of the fighters are refueling and arming." Thunder base replied. "Strike package Alpha has been delayed by five minutes but they are enroute now. Can on site troops designate targets?"

"negative negative, targets will be UAV designated." Diaz replied. "and any help is appreciated." _Although if you want your fucking island you're going to have to give us every single flyboy out there._

"ETA on Strike package Zulu?"

"Strike Package Zulu is restricted ma'am, civilian area means we can't hit with something that heavy. They are changing munitions to strike package Bravo." Great, so armor piercing clusterbombs were out of the picture, leaving her Ghosts with two 500 pound JDAMs or something like it to take out the head. Not exactly a bad thing but in the flurry of combat it wasn't all that easy to laser designate targets and the things often missed by fault of the designator. She tapped the icon representing Spotter and moved it over towards Boogeyman's position. Potter was a smart man and had split his group up to cover all avenues of escape. Good. But they were definitely outnumbered and they were up against an infantry force that could probably match them blow for blow. Adding to that-

The infantry figurines on the tactical display flashed red. Boogeyman had engaged.

* * *

The sharp crack of a sniper rifle going off alerted Colonel Diego that something was wrong he checked the display and found that a pair of his own guardian drones had been neutralized while the other two were having turret problems. Sharp American snipers had gone for the vulnerable area just under the turret, where designers left the armor weak to allow for the missiles to turn quicker. Unfortunately a lot of vital circuitry was under it and American Snipers used notoriously big bullets, probably with Teflon coating as well for extra penetration. This analyzation was immediately followed by the chatter of automatic small arms fire. His troops were engaging the Americans and here he was sitting here helpless! He zoomed in on his holodisplay, his paratroops were spread out along the intersection trading fire with American Special Forces troops, part of their Future Warrior regimen he could tell by their powered armor, who had taken up positions on in the buildings. They had height and flanking over his troops, many of them who were completely exposed and would be cut down.

"Arm the drones and switch all units to weapons free!" he barked and tapped a gunship squadron close by to come and help them. They'd be coming from the east and by God they'd flatten the buildings those Americans had occupied. The hiss of TOW missiles being fired from his combat drones told him the tide in his little war would be turning soon. He ordered the driver to pull out of the alleyway to bring the Command vehicles heavy Microwave weapon to bear on the targets who for some reason were not showing up on the display. Why would the heat registered targeting system not be locking onto the men that were surely occupying the windows and roofs of the adjacent buildings?

Potter sure hoped that his suits integrated coolant system was working. The fluid inside the body armor not only would help stop bullets but could cool providing comfort for the wearer in hot environments and block out Infrared heat signatures. He sighted up on a single man running for cover and his burst stitched three rounds up the back of his chest. He saw one round deflect from the body armor but the other two definitely severed the spinal chord. He'd loaded up with hollowpoint expanding rounds instead of the favored hard tipped Shatter that the Ghosts favored. A blue flare told him a missile passed close by and exploded in the sky.

"Target the drones!" he shouted and winked at it to prioritize it as a threat to all the nearby ghosts. At least six of them immediately sprayed it before one fired a grenade to kill it. The gunfire around him was just absolutely incredible. There was a storm of bullets flying around him that Potter felt he had to oblige. He had to consciously remember to shoot short controlled bursts and to make sure of the shot before firing. Easier said than done, 6.4 european rounds from F200assault rifles were kicking up flecks of dust and building all around him. A grenade fired from a launcher flew into a window where two of his men had taken position and the room exploded into dust and splinters. Shouts of "man down!" came over the com link.

"Missile up on the roof!" the sniper shouted and steadied his aim, kneeling and aiming upwards to steady the rifle bipod. Potter sighted up on the offender but the sniper fired, taking the man's head clean off with the heavy .50 caliber hollow point his man had loaded with as well. "Nice shot!" he congratulated but the sniper simply reworked the bolt and picked a second target. Over the noise of gunfire he could hear chopper rotors like beating drums. Potter poked his head towards the East where they would be coming. His HUD splashed red hostile boxes on them – that wasn't the reinforcements One Shot had promised.

"Sir, Cheetahs coming in from the East-" the report from his sergeant was lost over a roaring hiss at the same time two helos fired their missiles which slammed into the building on the corner tossing up concrete and dust, covering their outlines but his HUD continued to track their presence. they maintained tight formation coming down the intersection. There was a scream as the sniper who had been next to Potter suddenly dropped and began convulsing, clawing at his skin as though something was crawling inside of him. Potter poked his head up and spotted the command vehicle slowly rolling out of its hiding spot, its microwave weapon pointed directly at him. He immediately felt a warmth on his chest which quickly turned into a burning sensation at the same time it spread throughout his body. He quickly moved, dragging the sniper with him. The microwave cannon sported by the Enforcer Corp was lethal with seven seconds of sustained contact, and it could pass through solid objects. It would boil internal organs and bloodstream, killing cells and vitals until the target expired with absolutely no external trace beyond maybe singed hair. The only thing he could do was pull his man back into the building's hall where, the several layers of wood, paper and concrete supports would block the microwaves. Once he had done that, he rushed back into the fight, leaving the sniper groaning in the hall. It would be quite some time before he was fighting fit.

Potter returned just in time to see three gunships explode simultaneously – that would be the mines his troops had laid, powerful rocket mines with laser trip designators as well as motion and sonic sensors. If anything tripped them, land or air, they would either explode or shoot straight up and then explode depending on how they were tripped. It was an extremely nasty surprise, which the helicopters (which could just as easily flown around them, because they weren't hard to avoid) were unfortunate enough to blunder right in. The remaining was subject to a barrage of gunfire from the Ghost's lying in wait and sustained enough damage to disengage leaving that command vehicle to fend for itself. The microwave was being pointed in another direction, manually by a soldier on the roof.

Potter sighted up, lining the RDS marker with the target's chest as the command vehicle slowly but steadily pulled out. he fired a three round burst, the first two rounds ricocheting off the microwave turret itself and the third shattering the man's collarbone. He fell to the ground the Enforcer Kommando's "pilot mask" muffling any noise the dying man might have made. But that command vehicle was going to get away, he was pulling into the intersection the gunships had been destroyed in, probably smart enough to realize that, while there were definitely mines in that area most had probably been tripped leaving a decent escape window. He winked at the command vehicle to prioritize it and gratifyingly saw at least four other of his Ghosts rake it with rifle fire and grenades. But it was getting away and the Euros on the other side of the street renewed their attack, spraying bullets at them.

"Thunderbase, Boogeyman, we need that strike package now!"

"Hold tight Boogeyman, Strike package Alpha has been redirected by One Shot_, _strike package Delta is Enroute, ETA two mikes."

Potter shut off the channel cursing. It would probably take two minutes for that vehicle to get away, and there was nothing he could really do about it. Shooting out tires never really worked anymore because tires could reinflate or there was some other model design that would keep the vehicle safely moving. Even if it couldn't move very fast. A rocket lanced out and exploded on the hull of the vehicle doing nothing more than leaving a scorch mark.

Potter fired a futile burst, shattering the vehicle's tail lights at the very least. He was venomously rebuked by gunfire which kicked up concrete flecks on the balcony he was using as cover. It would getway, he couldn't let it get away…

* * *

The F-19 Bobcat wasn't originally designed to have an anti-tank role but needs must and generals loved flexible patterned armies, so one of the first things the mechanics did when Bobcats arrived was install ground tracking software and Blue force Trackers into the GPS systems. The GPS now was offline, but the ground software was working just fine. "Romeo" Fosker took his Bobcat in a low sweep, his thumb on the arm switch for his JSM missiles, another flexible weapon designed to hit air and ground targets. They weren't very powerful he had to admit, but they would hit hard enough hopefully. He skimmed low over the city, smoke and fires billowing in columns that elevated well above ten thousand feet and they would only climb higher until they dissolved in the upper atmosphere. It masked a lot of the visual landmarks Fosker would be using to reach his target. He was on afterburner, completely against orders but the enemy wasn't supposed to have any fighters servicible and anyway he was in a damn stealth fighter so what could go wrong? He kicked his fighter into an upward climb to dodge a building that was slightly over the five story uniform limit that was usually seen in old cities. He reached his target and nosed straight up, the last thing those Euros would hear was the scream of his 60-vv Pratt&Whitney Jet engines, followed by the scream of an American missile diving straight down. He climbed as high as he could for the sheer joy of it, then cut the engines and opened the flaps, he didn't see anything in the area save for Blue force Markers identifying the Ghosts he would be dropping for, where was his target? He couldn't drop without a target which would have to be laser designated, surely the Ghosts new that! Frantically he searched the ground for something to shoot as the altimeter dropped rapidly, he would have a scant minute to aquire lock and fire…

* * *

Duke couldn't believe some people did this for fun. He had climbed out of the wreck of his helicopter with barely a scratch on him. well, he'd have bruises all over his legs for the next month at the very least. They'd crashed into a butcher's shop of all the things, and before leaving for some reason Duke couldn't help but grab a cold cut of whatever that had been laying appetizingly out on the counter, untouched by any of the shrapnel or dust the chopper had kicked up. Legs was limping, he'd sprained his right ankle but was managing to keep up. His automatic sidearm was drawn. Duke carried a PDW cut down assault rifle in the cockpit, never planning to use it but thanking his own foresight now that he had brought it. There was however, only one clip of ammunition. Duke would have to be careful.

"Come on." He gestured and charge across the street not looking left or right but not getting a bullet in the back for his trouble. He gestured for Legs to come with him and he hobbled over with some difficulty. There was a battle close by, that meant friendlies. Even if it would be putting them both in danger again they'd be closer to Americans and out of the way sooner. The sound echoed through the streets, making it near impossible to discern the direction. Duke hoped he picked the right one-

There was a massive European truck pulling out of the intersection and a cheetah circling overhead, spraying cannon fire down the street it was leaving-he heard the roar of a jet engine and saw one of the new F-19 bobcats nose straight up and prepare for a vertical dive. The training instinct immediately returned: _Mark priority targets if air support is available._

Surely that was a European Command Vehicle? Duke flipped on the laser target designator screwed to the right side of his PDW rifle and fired single shots at the windows to kill the driver. It didn't work, he wasn't the best shooter in the battalion and plus its windows were bullet proofed. the laser remained pointed directly at the Command vehicle…

* * *

Colonel Diaz saw the enemy helicopter wink out first, the pilot had probably taken it out. then the Hologram tracked the Joint Strike Munition on its way down toward the Command vehicle.

It winked out a second later.

"That's a kill!" she shouted slamming the table in her excitement. " Intruder lead: Good kill good kill!"

* * *

The Mach 1 dive at five thousand meters was one skill Fosker truly mastered, pulling out of it and actually _feeling_ the right wing tip scrape against a satellite dish or something. Finished with that task, he climbed up to three thousand meters and waited for the next package delivery.

* * *

The roar of the explosion was actually muffled out by the scream of the jet fighter streaking so low overhead. Potter actually was flattened by the jet wash. He clambered back up, realizing that his rifle had mysteriously been blown away, and also that he had suddenly ended up on the street. Then to his dismay, he realized firstly that he had absolutely no cover, and secondly, he couldn't hear. He scrambled up and toppled back down, his knees too weak to hold him up. He tried again successfully if weakly and saw the blue shapes of Enforcer troops coming out of the buildings- he clumsily scrambled for his sidearm and raised it preparing to fire-

Then registered that the Euros were clearly holding their weapons by their barrels, hands nowhere near the trigger and in groups and pairs they set them down and removed their helmets. There was faint noise now, muffled as if he were listening to them underwater. A hand shook him, it was Sergeant Digent, second squads leader and he was mouthing words that Potter was too rattled to understand. He just nodded and waved him away as he moved to sit down. His hand was shaking- the adrenaline rush would pass soon and then he'd be passed out like a drunk. He sat down dumbfounded and watched as the Sergeant ordered his men – what was left of them – to line the European troops against the wall and keep them until the Royal Marine battalion arrived ten minutes later to pick them up. His Ghosts and a couple of the marines scrambled over the ruins of the block and Command vehicle, searching for survivors but finding none. The Valkyrie VTOL landed in the intersection ten minutes after that and Potter and his men and wounded clattered clumsily on board and were whisked away back to the Carrier. It would be good to have some R&R after such a fight.

* * *

The Europeans were slow to react at first. But then leading officers of the resistance pockets began realizing they were not receiving any orders and then ordered their men to stand down. In ones and twos, Squadrons began powering off their weapons and surrendering. There were a few last standers, those were quickly rooted out and eliminated by the British Royal Marines and by nightfall, Iceland was in the hands of the United States Joint Strike Force.

* * *

Heaven was white. And it was soft, there were no loud noises and it gave one this dreamy feeling of permanently buoyed as if walking on clouds or wading. Dean wondered briefly how he knew how that felt if he was lying down but he _did_ feel like he was floating. There were angels around him, well one anyway. A familiar face smiled at him, though he couldn't immediately place it and he vaguely felt something stroke his right hand. The angel was blonde and had eyes the shade of a blue that reminded him of the sky or staring at the sun from underwater. He wondered if he smiled back? He tried to feeling his lips tug sheepishly. There was such peace here. God was coming, he could hear heavily booted steps thud on the cloud floor. The voice echoed and reverberated but was deep. God sure did look like someone familiar, who? God's face was stern, and he could see the old guy had a couple scratches on him new ones too. He called out his name "Lieutenant Dean". The voice boomed.

"Yes sir." He heard himself weakly say. God fished for something in the breast pocket of his white uniform and pulled out a shining star pinning it to Deans chest.

"For showing bravery and courage in an adverse situation, and for adhering to the morals and conduct of the United States Military, it is my honor to award you First Lieutenant John Dean the Congressional Medal of Honor." God- no the Admiral. Who?

"For performing above and beyond the dictated duty, for bravery under fire and for exemplary leadership and outstanding courage, I award you this Naval Cross." The Admiral - Jamesson that was it! - pinned the bronze thing on his chest. Dean glanced down as far as he could (which wasn't far at all) to see the medal.

"and finally for being wounded in combat, I award you the purple heart." The admiral pinned the third and final medal on Deans chest. "You're a good Sailor Lieutenant." And the Admiral saluted him which Dean clumsily returned. "Its good to see you too miss Augustdottir." Jamesson nodded at Vigdis and left the medical ward. Dean was aware of the slight rocking now, so he was on a ship. That made sense. He tried to turn his head to see the other guys, maybe a few of them were with him but the sharp twinge told him that wasn't the brightest idea.

"Don't." Vigdis said and brushed his head back to the neutral position. "You not well."

"I'm okay as long as you're here." Dean mumbled loud enough for her to hear. She blushed. There was a sudden feeling about him, maybe it was the drugs he'd been shot up with but you know what? What the hell, he'd been roughing it on that island for a week at least and it would feel damn good to say this right now.

"Vigdis, I know we only met for a couple days and hell after what happened to your parents…" and suddenly he fumbled, all that confidence gone as he realized what his opening line would actually be.

"You love me." Vigdis said matter of factly her blue eyes boring into Deans.

"Well…yeah." Was all Dean could say after a long moment. Vigdis didn't say anything, waiting for Dean to work up his courage again. Dean managed it.

"Will you marry me?" Fuck he only knew her for a couple of days and it _definitely _ was the drugs making him do this, but if that was true and he knew it then why was he going through? And why did it feel just so _right? _Because, he realized in his still drug induced stupor, this girl probably needed protection, and would need someone and Dean just wanted to be there for her. It probably wasn't the same as two highschool sweethearts getting married after a four year steady period, but love was supposed to be nothing but giving right? And getting laid by this girl wasn't even on his mind so yeah it really _was _unconditional love.

Vigdis's expression didn't change although she looked down. Then she looked up and reached for Deans purple heart and plucked it off to place it on her chest, just over where the heart would be.

"You have no ring to give me Dean," she said finally smiling. "But I will always have your heart. My answer is yes." And she bent down to kiss him on the forehead which oddly enough made Dean heady enough to actually swoon and go unconscious.

"_Damn!_" Lieutenant Domingo Chavez said upon entering the medical ward. He came to visit his comrade SEAL and had heard the stories of him picking up an Icelandic girl. "you must be _some girl_!" Vigdis blushed and walked away quickly while Chavez sheepishly checked the IV and charts. Well no wonder! They'd drugged Dean up enough to put down an Elephant!

* * *

It wasn't home. But it would be for the next couple of weeks. The sky was a foggy gray as Toland had heard so many stories of the British isles to be like. It was always supposed to be raining here (then why was it that so many English stories were on hot summer days?) but it wasn't now. The waves were calm and just sloshed along the hull. Toland stood on the mast, conning his ship in the old fashioned way, by the "mark one eyeball" and telescope. Maybe he'd bring up the old sextant for fun but the name still made the younger sailors giggle and he didn't want the old man reputation perking up for the rest of the trip. The British tugs had nothing to tie on the ship and were merely a formality.

"Welcome" they seemed to say "to the home that will be yours for the next few months ya damn colonial yank!" Toland allowed himself a chuckle for that one. The "smell of the sea" that so many people called it was really the smell of land, the mixture of salt and brine and the decaying animals that washed up on shore told Sailors both before and now that they were homecoming. The british harbor, he could see was cleared to make way for the first of the fleet attempting for refits and for crews to get some much needed R&R. there was just the last job of guiding USS Chicago into the harbor. Toland raised the intercom microphone to his lips.

"All hands to action stations." He ordered "Come right to zero nine six right standard rudder cut speed to one sixth."

The sub slowly turned to the right, maybe a few degrees and then slipped into the harbor as quietely as a mouse. There was no fanfare to greet the Americans there was just the few dockhands that tipped their curious caps at the strange man on the mast of the submarine. It was quiet but that was okay for the submariner.

"All stop."

"All stop aye." USS Chicago silently as the wind, stopped moving. The dockhands stood a little straighter.

"Mooring."


End file.
